What Vertical portal is
A portal that caters to consumers within a particular industry (sometimes called a "vertical industry"). Vertical portals, also called "vortals," use Internet technology to offer the same kind of personalization tools that portals do. Another kind of vortal caters solely to other businesses rather than to an industry's consumers. The B2C portal gave the B2B industry a model to work from, and now, most business-to-business sites bill themselves as portals. We like to define business-to-business sites as vertical portals because they deliver content and services focused on their particular niche. The term "portal" is getting muddied because although many sites call themselves portals they are, in fact, simply Web sites that use cookie and/or personalization technology (see: personalize).
The two essential components of a vertical portal are that it uses this kind of technology and caters to a specific industry. The two essential components of a regular portal are that it uses this kind of technology and provides a variety of news, media, and services.
The meaning of User
A term that defines the online audience, it also refers to anyone who uses a computer. The term "users" rubs some people the wrong way because, in the past, if you said you were a user, it meant you were habitually consuming an illicit drug. Nowadays, a user is a person who is online. It comes from techies, who refer to people as "computer users." Historical reference: The word "users" is not yet in the American Heritage Dictionary, but the word "user-friendly" made it; perhaps because we are the first group ever to be online users.
Historical Reference: The word "users" isn't in the American Heritage Dictionary but the word "user-friendly" made it. The term "use" is defined in a variety of ways which, when taken in the context of "Internet users," can be quite poignant: "to put into service, to employ, to exploit, to consume completely, the privilege of using something," and so on. In the past you'd never refer to yourself as "a user" unless you were drug addicted... does this say something about how we're all getting addicted to the online world?
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