Portalisation of sites

[Brian Turner]

Something I've noticed myself moving towards is the portalisation of sites.

Whereas normally I might have set up a blog, forum, and news on similar subjects on different websites, I've noticed myself trying to concentrate these into portals.

I have a couple of sites where they started as forums, but now they are being expanded to provide news and blogs.

Plus I have a couple of sites in the same area which I'm now merging together.

The reason being - to offer better overall value for the user experience, and also advertising potential.

Question is, am I the only one focusing on this way, or are other people doing this with their own sites? And am I even late to the party?

[TWD-Tony]

Your a little late to the party!

Seriously though, with the birth of "Web 2.0" (God I hate that phrase!) people are building "communities" where people can interact with both the website and other members of the community... Portals are probably just a bit behind a "community" as they allow less interaction between users than a full blown community but still allow users to navigate a website sharing the same log-in and personal details accross several systems (Blog, Forum, Articles etc).

I have created several "Web 2.0" communities recently and at first I was sceptical that people would want the added features but they seem to love it - the more user features the better!

[Brian Turner]

Well, I run a lot of "communities", but what I mean is integrating them with a news and blog section.

For example, I ran a small UK property forum. But I figured alone it had restricted potential. So now I've just been developing a new site on a new domain, with forums, news, and blog section.

So I'm talking not so much about communities in general, but bringing together lots of different types of site under one umbrella.

Heck, that was always the aim of Platinax - I was going to redirect a number of sites to here - instead of a cluster of sites about different topics (SEO, forums, directory, etc) then I'd merge them into a single portal offering all. And that was over 2 years ago. So I guess I am indeed late.