| By Hooman Radfar | Article Rating: |
|
| August 3, 2008 08:45 AM EDT | Reads: |
1,634 |
The value proposition of the old school Web portal was simple - we aggregate content for you to consume. In return for this service, you'll give us your attention, which we will monetize via advertisements. Companies like AOL and Yahoo executed against this value proposition and secured rather significant positions in the blossoming Web space.
The foundational assumption of the portal model was that the user is a passive consumer of content. This concept used to work well because:
- Content and service creation was expensive
- Aggregating content and services was a manual process
- Computing, storage, and bandwidth were expensive
- Web-based programming languages, methodologies, and toolkits were limited
These dynamics have changed. The proliferation of Web Services, micro-formats, and structured data formats has given birth to a new class of Web-based applications that leverage data from multiple sources. The rich interaction once only possible in desktop programming environments is now available for the Web programming environment. The base assumptions that made portals the best model simply do not apply any longer.
The new model is "media served a la carte." Video, text, audio, images, and even applications are being exposed via Web Services and widgets. People are no longer satisfied with the "go-to" content model, demanding instead a "come to me" Web. People are spending an increasing amount of time on social networks, startpages, and blogs. As the cost of content production decreases, more control of content generation is flowing to the users. If the value proposition for the portal was "We aggregate content for you to consume," the new value proposition is "We give you tools to aggregate, create, and share content easily."
The startpage is fantastic example of this new paradigm. Hosted services like Netvibes or Pageflakes enable people to assemble their own sites in minutes, using simple drag-and-drop tools to grab photos from Flickr, news from CNN, articles from Wikipedia, and much, much more. Startpages, social networks, and blogs have long been treated as separate categories of Web-based applications. However, this is changing. As these categories evolve, they are merging into a new class of application - the Social Aggregator.
Published August 3, 2008 Reads 1,634
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
More Stories By Hooman Radfar
Hooman Radfar is CEO and co-founder of Clearspring. He actively drives platform marketing and strategy initiatives at Clearspring. He was recently named one of Tech's Best Entrepreneurs in BusinessWeek and was nominated for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year. When he is not busy building a better web, you can find him writing his blog Widgify. Hooman graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in economics and computer science. He holds an MS from Carnegie Mellon University where he researched Social Networking Theory.
- Cloud Computing on Gartner's Top 10 List and SYS-CON Events' 2010 Calendar
- Confessions of a Ulitzer Addict
- IBM Hardware Chief, Intel VC Exec Arrested in Insider Trading Scam
- My Thoughts on Ulitzer
- Tactical Cloud Computing Panel at 1st Annual GovIT Expo
- Ulitzer.com Named Exclusive "New Media" Sponsor of Cloud Computing Conference & Expo
- Moving Your RIA Apps into the Cloud: Seven Challenges
- Adobe’s Aiming ColdFusion at Multiple Clouds
- Windows 7 – Microsoft’s First Step to the Cloud
- Ulitzer Provides a Powerful Social Journalism Platform
- Jill Tummler Singer, Deputy CIO of CIA, Keynotes at GovIT Expo
- Open Source Mobile Cloud Sync and Push Email
- Practical Approaches for Optimizing Website Performance
- The Difference Between Web Hosting and Cloud Computing
- Cloud Computing on Gartner's Top 10 List and SYS-CON Events' 2010 Calendar
- Ajax in RichFaces 3.3, JSF 2 and RichFaces 4
- Confessions of a Ulitzer Addict
- IBM Hardware Chief, Intel VC Exec Arrested in Insider Trading Scam
- My Thoughts on Ulitzer
- Tactical Cloud Computing Panel at 1st Annual GovIT Expo
- US Post Office Hops a Ride on NetSuite’s Cloud
- Ulitzer.com Named Exclusive "New Media" Sponsor of Cloud Computing Conference & Expo
- WPF Controls by DevExpress
- Moving Your RIA Apps into the Cloud: Seven Challenges
- Building a Drag-and-Drop Shopping Cart with AJAX
- What Is AJAX?
- Google Maps! AJAX-Style Web Development Using ASP.NET
- Flashback to January 2006: Exclusive SYS-CON.TV Interviews on "OpenAjax Alliance" Announcement
- AJAXWorld Conference & Expo to Take Place October 2-4, 2006, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, California
- AJAX Sponsor Webcasts Are Now Available at AJAXWorld Website
- How and Why AJAX, Not Java, Became the Favored Technology for Rich Internet Applications
- "Real-World AJAX" One-Day Seminar Arrives in Silicon Valley
- AJAXWorld University Announces AJAX Developer Bootcamp
- AJAX Support In JadeLiquid WebRenderer v3.1
- Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?
- Struts Validations Framework Using AJAX

































