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The online power of users and money: can culture gain?
The online power of users and money: can culture gain?
Lidia Varbanova
Web portals: vehicles to increase participation and access
Only a few years ago, we used to meet only in traditional “offline” spaces –
classroom, conference hall, meeting room, university. Today the online communities
are pioneering new forms of collaborative processes and production that also
revolutionize markets and companies. Not so long ago, a Web portal was just a
structured framework of tabs and icons, containing very few images and hyperlinks to
other websites. For a very short period of only a few years, the Web portal became a
service-delivering online tool, a connector and facilitator, a meeting point, a place to
share ideas and gain friends, but also to buy and sell goods and services. It seems
more and more that we share our life between the “real” one and the “virtual” one.
Digital culture is one of the global phenomena of the twenty-first century. It is a
fascinating trend, because it is about access – to everybody by everybody, it has no
limits. It helps us to overcome borders and offers us a “second life” in the virtual
spaces. Irrespective of our cultural background, traditions, religion, ethnicity, gender,
we can get together and exchange experiences, ideas and knowledge through the
Internet. We do this in most cases also for fun, for entertainment and pleasure. Digital
culture proves that in spite of coming from different corners of the world, diverse
countries, cities and regions, we all have similar needs: to know, to create, to share
and to communicate. The information is just there – available and accessible for each
one of us, anytime.
Web portals are one of the important online platforms for facilitation of the
creation and sharing of digital culture. The way portals are set up varies from broad
networking tools encouraging online communication and sharing to pure business
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