I have a query about the relationship between portals and social networks, I have looked at an examination paper and been asked to state how the two are different and how the two are similar? any help would be appreciated. its is only a small question so doesn't not require much detail. Thankyou
That is a good question. I think you can Google it and get all kinds of responses. In my opinion, a portal is a gateway site. It is a site that you go to, either as a home page or a page you visit frequently (like Google or Yahoo) in order to access various resources. They allow you to search, see the weather, and/or see the scores for your favorite sports team. Social networks on the other hand is a much bigger topic because they come in so many different forms (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, SnapChat, etc.). Social networks are environments that bring people together based on some common, social interest. It may be professional (LinkedIn), friendship based (Facebook), etc. How are they similar? You will most certainly get different answers depending on who you are talking to. But, I think one way in which they are similar is that they both put vast amounts of information at your fingertips in a cloud based environment. Think about it. Rarely do you have to have anything special in order to access a portal or a social network. Any computer with a browser will work. This helps to significantly reduce the learning curve to access each type of service and thus facilitate increased usage, a necessity for the success of each. One way in which they are different is the way in which content is generated. In social networks, content is user generated. In other words, you and your peers generate the content by posting comments, pictures, and so on. To the contrary, a portal usually brings you closer to other's content; content generated not by you or your peers but by news sources, weather services, etc. I hope this helps.
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I have a query about the relationship between portals and social networks, I have looked at an examination paper and been asked to state how the two are different and how the two are similar? any help would be appreciated. its is only a small question so doesn't not require much detail. Thankyou
That is a good question. I think you can Google it and get all kinds of responses. In my opinion, a portal is a gateway site. It is a site that you go to, either as a home page or a page you visit frequently (like Google or Yahoo) in order to access various resources. They allow you to search, see the weather, and/or see the scores for your favorite sports team.
Social networks on the other hand is a much bigger topic because they come in so many different forms (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, SnapChat, etc.). Social networks are environments that bring people together based on some common, social interest. It may be professional (LinkedIn), friendship based (Facebook), etc.
How are they similar? You will most certainly get different answers depending on who you are talking to. But, I think one way in which they are similar is that they both put vast amounts of information at your fingertips in a cloud based environment. Think about it. Rarely do you have to have anything special in order to access a portal or a social network. Any computer with a browser will work. This helps to significantly reduce the learning curve to access each type of service and thus facilitate increased usage, a necessity for the success of each.
One way in which they are different is the way in which content is generated. In social networks, content is user generated. In other words, you and your peers generate the content by posting comments, pictures, and so on. To the contrary, a portal usually brings you closer to other's content; content generated not by you or your peers but by news sources, weather services, etc.
I hope this helps.
***** This is exactly what I needed. I really appreciate the time taken to answer this.