Jim Murphy and Ray Valdes are presenting on the topic of Generation 7 Portals. Portals have been around since 1998 and have evolved over 7 generations according to Jim. Gen 7 Portals include the following features, which have been built on the previous generations:
- Analytics
- Portal-less Portals
- Context aware
- Portal ubiquity
- Emerging UXP
- Widgets dominate
- Mobile dominates
Both speakers dove into the demand drivers for Gen 7 Portals and include the following concepts:
- Context aware computing
- Context will be as influential to mobile consumer services and relationships as search engines are to the web
- Includes identity, community, intent, environment contexts
- This is personalization on steroids.
- Common optimization processes
- Multivariate testing
- Profiling and segmenation
- Personalized content management
- Advertising
- Visit Remarkting
- Cross channel integration
- High level of social analysis
- Public APIs and Widgets
- Responsive Web design and implementation
Jim and Ray hit on a key topic that I am interested in and in which I receive lots of questions from our customers: When to use a portal versus a web content management system versus and ecommerce system?
Unfortunately, there is not a clean, clear-cut answer to this question. We do a lot of strategic analysis to help customers answer this question because the answer depends on each customer’s unique needs. Gartner’s advice is that you should invest in a single foundation and compliment it where necessary. Few companies should invest in more than one foundation. Most companies should buy a platform rather than try to build it themselves.
