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Digital Culture: The Changing Dynamics
models which generate revenues. There are also “hybrid” versions of portals,
covering elements of both.
A very important element of a Web portal is the ability to connect individuals and
communities globally and to enable them to share and communicate in groups (small
or extremely large) based on their interests. Nowadays a number of factors should be
considered for a Web portal to be a successful social networking tool and to
eventually earn money:
• real-time collaboration services: instant messaging, discussions online, group
calendars, shared online encyclopaedias;
• integrated applications: workflow integration, syndicated content, group
emails, common online workflow;
• personalized delivery of content: providing information specific to needs and
preferences of a user, filtering based on priorities;
• e-commerce possibilities.
The term “user-generated content” was first used in 2005, reflecting the various
kinds of media content produced by users, uploaded online and publicly available
(such as blogging, podcasting, videos, etc.). In 2006 the global media announced the
new Web world as a tool to make each person on the planet matter and giving him/her
possibility to contribute, to promote, to be visible worldwide. The Web 2.0 tools
(discussion groups, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, podcasts) started to become
more and more popular and spread across the globe. They form an online
environment created by users’ interactions and the content is published, changed,
managed and used by everyone who wants to be part of the network. It is an intangible
user-orientated structure.
The emphasis in Web 2.0 tools is on the end user who has the power to speak out, to
promote and develop his/her own brand with much less initial capital than was
needed before. Creators and developers of websites realized that they could make
money by increasing the users’ traffic and attracting advertising. This can happen of
course only if content is very interesting for large numbers of users, or if the online
platform is set up in an easy-to-share way. Artists, musicians, writers and
photographers today have a low-cost publishing mechanism to distribute their
creative works. They can choose among numerous portals for posting their music,
photos, books and other creative products. Producers also watch online
self-promotion websites: record companies actually monitor the number of friends
that a MySpace band has and often sign up musicians when they reach a certain
number of friends.
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