Intranet, Extranet, Portal

Intranet

• An intranet is a network within an organization that links together users by means of Internet technologies.

• An intranet limits the Internet territory by establishing access controlled zones where users may communicate and interact freely.

• These networks are based on WWW --> users may communicate in real time between platforms.

Intranet (cont.)• An intranet is usefull for organizations that:– Are geographically dispersed;– Share common business objectives;– Have common information needs;– Value collaboration.

• An Intranet may have 3functionality levels:– It Displays general, static information;– Sharing data – used for managing dynamic data within an

organization;– Interactive communications – real-time collaboration and

creating a secured platform for interactive communication within an organization.

An Intranet may be used for:• Displaying the goal and scope of the organization;• on-line manuals and procedures;• Creating internal forums and bulletin boards;• Displaying a digital phone book and a personnel catalogue;• Event calendars for the events within the organization;• Search engine for documents;• Displaying news from within the organization and from the

outside world;• Lists of articles written by partners;• List of clients and contact information database;• Marketing and price information for products together with

their catalogue;

Advantages for using an Intranet• Workforce productivity: Intranets can help employees to quickly find and view information and

applications relevant to their roles and responsibilities. Via a simple-to-use web browser interface, users can access data held in any database the organization wants to make available, anytime and - subject to security provisions - from anywhere, increasing employees' ability to perform their jobs faster, more accurately, and with confidence that they have the right information.

• Time: With intranets, organizations can make more information available to employees on a "pull" basis (ie: employees can link to relevant information at a time which suits them) rather than being deluged indiscriminately by emails.

• Communication: Intranets can serve as powerful tools for communication within an organization, vertically and horizontally.

• Web publishing allows 'cumbersome' corporate knowledge to be maintained and easily accessed throughout the company using hypermedia and Web technologies. Examples include: employee manuals, benefits documents, company policies, business standards, newsfeeds, and even training, can be accessed using common Internet standards (Acrobat files, Flash files, CGI applications). Because each business unit can update the online copy of a document, the most recent version is always available to employees using the intranet.

• Business operations and management: Intranets are also being used as a platform for developing and deploying applications to support business operations and decisions across the internetworked enterprise.

Disadvantages

• Publication of information must be controlled to ensure only correct and appropriate information is provided in the intranet – poate fi combinat cu solutii de workflow pentru rezolvarea problemei.

• Appropriate security permissions must be in place to ensure there are no concerns over who accesses the intranet or abuse of the intranet by users.

Exemples• KPMG moved all of its information assets to an intranet called

KWorld.• “The success of Cisco Systems has been largely attributed to its

innovative corporate intranet”• Ford Motor Co has more than 175,000 employees in 950 locations

worldwide, each of whom had access to the company’s intranet, called Myford.com. The intranet gave employees information about benefits, demographics, salary history, general company news and human resources forms.

• ShoreBank's branch, affiliate, and consulting service employees around the world communicate and collaborate using SIREN. SIREN is an intranet, extranet, and knowledge management solution implemented in 2006 using Intranet DASHBOARD.

• The Australian National University uses an Intranet called Claromentis to maintain one of its external sites.

Links• http://www.intranetjournal.com• http://www.intranetblog.com• http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/• http://www.eaber.org• http://b-r-ent.com• http://www.sorce.biz/whitepaperindex.asp• http://www.s-development.net/blogs/• http://www.intranetmaturity.com/• http://www.theworkplaceblog.com/

Extranet• It is an Web site with controlled access where the visitors may

come from the outside of the organization• Exemples:

– Sales extranets allow the owners to publish special content for important clients or for those that [prospect the market.

– B2B/e-commerce/virtual stores extranets for selected clients. – Extranets for project management or collaborative extranets allow

sharing documents, plans and electronic goods within partners. – In 2003 in the United Kingdom, several of the leading vendors formed

the Network of Construction Collaboration Technology Providers, or NCCTP, to promote the technologies and to establish data exchange standards between the different systems

• An extranet uses the features and the goals of an intranet, extending them beyond the borders of an organization

Extranet usage• Sharing up-to-date documents, files and images with

suppliers, partners and clients from different locations;• Working in collaboration for editing, revision, updating,

versioning and storing documents and digital goods;• Managing projects among partners from a single location;• Sharing updated versions of frequently updated

documents: sales reports, stock summaries, product specifications, design documents, production planning etc.

• Access for partners to back-office functions such as stock management, warranty information, dates for new products, shared sales etc.

Advantages• Extranets can improve organization productivity by automating

processes that were previously done manually (e.g.: reordering of inventory from suppliers). Automation can also reduce the margin of error of these processes.

• Extranets allow organization or project information to be viewed at times convenient for business partners, customers, employees, suppliers and other stake-holders. This cuts down on meeting times and is an advantage when doing business with partners in different time zones.

• Information on an extranet can be updated, edited and changed instantly. All authorised users therefore have immediate access to the most up-to-date information.

• Extranets can improve relationships with key customers, providing them with accurate and updated information

Disadvantages• Extranets can be expensive to implement and maintain

within an organisation (e.g.: hardware, software, employee training costs) — if hosted internally instead of via an Application Service Provider;

• Security of extranets can be a big concern when dealing with valuable information. System access needs to be carefully controlled to avoid sensitive information falling into the wrong hands.

• Extranets can reduce personal contact (face-to-face meetings) with customers and business partners. This could cause a lack of connections made between people and a company, which hurts the business when it comes to loyalty of its business partners and customers.

Portals• Definition: Portals are single point of access to information which is:

– from various logically linked internet based applications and– is of interest to various type of users

• Site on the World Wide Web that typically provides personalized capabilities to its visitors, providing a pathway to other content. – It is designed to use distributed applications, – different numbers and types of middleware and hardware to provide

services from a number of different sources. – In addition, business portals are designed to share collaboration in

workplaces. – A further business-driven requirement of portals is that the content

be able to work on multiple platforms such as personal computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and cell phones.

Advantages

• advantages of using portals:– intelligent integration and access to enterprise

content, applications and processes– improved communication and collaboration

among customers, partners, and employees– unified, real-time access to information held in

disparate systems– personalized user interactions– rapid, easy modification and maintenance of the

website presentation

Types of portals

Types of portals

Types of Portals• International portals (Yahoo!)• Regional portals [(MswPower.Com),China (Sina.com), Italy (Webplace.it)]

– local information such as weather forecasts, street maps and local business information

• Government portals:– USA.gov,– DisabilityInfo.gov– Directgov (UK) – pentru cetateni– businesslink.gov.uk (UK) – pentru persoane juridice

• Corporate/Enterprise portals• Hosted web portals

– corporate portals gained popularity a number of companies began offering them as a hosted service

– Hyperoffice.com, OFFICEHQ.com• Domain specific portals – pentru toate tipurile de afarceri

Other types of portals• Entertainment Portals: Often all members of an entertainment portal are responsible for its content

and direct the type of entertainment that is available to visitors to the site. An example of one such portal is the South African Music and Entertainment portal Overtone. These can be an essential part of community based networking and collaboration

• Environmental Portals: In recent years, many Environmental Portals have been developed in order to raise awareness about Environmental Indicators. Such an Example is the EUSOILS

• Investment Portals: These are an excellent resource when researching global and industry specific markets

• B2B and B2C Portals: B2B or Business to Business Portals have become a very important resource for Global business. They provide buyer and seller details for different commodities and products and help in connecting businesses across the globe. A B2B portal that specializes in a single industry is called a Vertical B2B Portal or a Vortal. B2C or Business to Consumer portals are used to directly sell products to consumers

• Mini Portals: Some localized portals are based on local interests, and edited and maintained by individuals. While they do not provide the same levels of services as major portals, they are a good place for collaboration of ideas, for commonly interested people

• Voice Portals: In addition to standard web sites accessed through web browsers, people can also access "voice sites" through "voice browsers". Destinations accessed in this way by standard telephones are often called Voice Portals.

Enterprise portal

• Definition:– Enterprise Information Portals are one of the most

popular ways in which enterprises can allow their employees and customers to search and access corporate information.

– It is a single gateway for users, such as employees, customers and company’s partners to log into and retrieve corporate information, company history and other services or resources

– is a web portal for use within an organization.

Example of an EIP Architecture

Example of an EIP Architecture 2

Portal features - 1

1. Web interface;2. Presentation services (user interface

management);3. External data access mechanisms;4. Data access management;5. security, authentication and personalization;6. Tools for portal development;7. Portal administrative and management tools.

Portal features - 2• Content and document management — services that support the full life cycle of content and document

creation and provide mechanisms for authoring, approval, version control and scheduled publishing. Some portal solutions providers aim to remove the need for a third-party content management system.

• Collaboration — portal members can communicate synchronously (through chat or messaging) or asynchronously through threaded discussion and email digests (forums) and blogs.

• Search & Navigation — Content is meant to be read, so on the usage side of the equation, being able to find and retrieve targeted content is the essential task. As more content is added to repositories, the more valuable those repositories become. Unfortunately, retrieving useful information becomes more difficult as the volume of information grows unless effective search and navigation methods are employed.

• Personalization — the ability for portal members to subscribe to specific types of content and services. Users can customize the look and feel of their environment.Customers who are using EIPs can edit and design their own web sites which are full of their own personality and own style; they can also choose the specific content and services they prefer. Like My Yahoo. MSN.

• Entitlement /Securitate — the ability for portal administrators to limit specific types of content and services users have access to. For example, a company's proprietary information can be entitled for only company employee access.

• Integration — the connection of functions and data from multiple systems into new components/portlets.• Single sign-on (SSO) — many enterprise portals provide single sign-on capabilities between their users and

various other systems. This requires a user to authenticate only once. Access control lists manage the mapping between portal content and services over the portal user base.

EIP Advantages• Centralization: EIPs provide a centralized system that may contain a wide

range of a company’s corporate information and access to online applications. This centralized information system enables customers or employees to easily access information such as reports, application forms or policy documents. Furthermore, it is easy for the individuals within the company to update or edit content.

• Increase productivity and profit: information and time is money. A Centralized and well organized information system provided by EIP can help employees get quick response and information that increase employees’ productivity. In addition, it can offer customers easy access to resources that may increase the company’s sources of customers.

• Provide security area: EIP has one significant feature which is providing a security area that for team or a specific partner to access, which means only authorized users can access restriction information.

EIP Disavantages• High cost: To maintain several Web and portal sites for employees, customers and

partners is an expensive process, companies can spend a huge amount of money on an EIP system in the hope that it will provide a stable portal for them.

• Conflict: To keep the current infrastructures or introduce more advanced system? Many businesses required a single, integrated Web environment to cover all the information and applications that is easy for employees, partners and customers to view and find information. However, no company would like to spend huge cost on replacing their existing infrastructures.

• outmoded platform: Many companies used to have an outmoded development platform. Also they pay unequal attention on their information system. Especially for external, customers or employees can not find enough information or applications that they wanted. Therefore, the company may lose lots of chances to attract potential customers.

• Ignoring Importance of Information Systems: An information repository is one of the basic requirements for a company to keep providing information to employees, partners or customers which they wish to view as web pages over their intranet. In contrast, a portal that does not contain all pertinent information resources can decrease a company’s market share and competitive advantage.

Data presentation techniques within portals

• Portlet (pluggable user interface components that are managed and displayed in a web portal. Portlets produce fragments of markup code that are aggregated into a portal page. Typically, a portal page is displayed as a collection of non-overlapping portlet windows, where each portlet window displays a portlet. Hence a portlet (or collection of portlets) resembles a web-based application that is hosted in a portal. Portlet applications include email, weather reports, discussion forums, and news.

• Web-parts: Web Part is an add-on ASP.NET technology to Windows SharePoint Services. Web Parts are an integrated set of controls for creating Web sites that enable end users to modify the content, appearance, and behavior of Web pages directly from a browser

• Digital dashboards: also known as an enterprise dashboard or executive dashboard, is a business management tool used to visually ascertain the status (or "health") of a business enterprise via key business indicators. Digital dashboards use visual, at-a-glance displays of data pulled from disparate business systems to provide warnings, action notices, next steps, and summaries of business conditions

Digital Dashboard

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971083.htm

A "dashboard" pulls up everything the CEO needs to run the show

Personalization• Creating a product (electronic or not) for a certain user.• What can be personalized (among others)

– web pages– personalized according to the user preferences• Customization – something that the user does to change the sort of content

and user interface that one sees• Personalization in an EIP– accomplished according to the attributes of a user:

department, functional area, role in that organization.– Search engine / Google -

http://searchengineland.com/070202-224617.php• Available for authenticated users• Large-scale personalization taking into account: user history, bookmarks,

community behavior etc.– Magazines

• Address• Targeted ads according to the geographic area or interests

• Others – mugs, shirts, …

Why Personalization?• Save time: Eliminate repetitive tasks; remember transactional details; recognize

habits and shorten the path to engage in such habits (example: frequently called numbers on a phone should automatically go into the phone’s memory).

• Save money: Prevent redundant work (example: make it easier for employees and suppliers to know someone else has already solved the problem that they are currently facing); eliminate service components unnecessary to a customer; identify lower-cost solutions that meet all other specifications.

• Better information: Provide training; filter out information not relevant to a person; provide more specific information that is increasingly relevant to a person’s interests; increase the reliability of information; replace “average” information with information specific to that person’s environment.

• Address ongoing needs, challenges, or opportunities: Provide one-stop services; allow flexibility in work hours, job responsibilities, and benefits; accommodate unique personal preferences (example: allow employees to customize their office space, within certain boundaries); recognize and reward achievement with special treatment.

Personalization Disadvantages• Anonymity preferred. There are many reasons why people might not want to be identified, from the innocent - it's a

birthday present they don't want their spouse to discover in advance on their credit card statement - to the unethical or illegal. Some people are simply private, and prefer to mind their own business and let others mind theirs. Others recognize the growing infringements on private space and choose to take the cautious route. – A. Michael Froomkin, associate professor at the University of Miami School of Law, wrote, "Anonymity may be the

primary tool available to citizens to combat the compilation and analysis of personal profile data, although data protection laws also may have some effect."

• Lack of relevance. People do not want a relationship with companies that have no relevance to them. Computer programmers have no interest in getting to know an executive recruiter who only places sales executives. Homeowners who only buy the finest products for their home will not be interested in a cut-rate furniture store. – If you've never been to Arkansas, never plan to go there, and don't know anyone there, you don't want to be on the

mailing list of the Arkansas Tourism Board. On the Web, companies constantly ignore this factor and ask individuals for information before demonstrating to the person's satisfaction that their services are relevant. The prime example is companies that insist people fill out a lengthy form before they can gain access to a demo or to additional information. If a company asks people for information before it has demonstrated relevance, between 30 and 50 percent-depending on which statistics you believe-will lie to prevent revealing personal information.

• Lack of credibility. If you don't trust a company, it becomes a relationship of last resort. Unless you have no choice, you don't want to deal with it. People don't need proof that a company deserves to be in this category. Often, a small suggestion that this might be the case is enough to justify caution.

• Lack of security. Good intentions aren't enough. If a company fails to protect its assets, and those of its stakeholders, then people will not be willing to share anything of value with the firm. Security is like sausage making: the more you know about it, the less likely you are to be comfortable. People have real reasons to fear that today's centralized networks are not secure, because they frequently are not.

Personalization Disadvantages (2)• Impossible. Sometimes, people just aren't able to take advantage of attractive offers. If a

company, local government, spouse, or neighborhood forbids a person from moving forward, that's life. Likewise, if people lack the ability to accept personalization-perhaps they lack a sophisticated enough cell phone, or a fast enough Web connection-it won't happen.

• Infrequent contact. People will have little interest in establishing a relationship with a cab driver in a city they rarely visit, or with the company that installs their new septic system (a once-in-twenty-five-years event.) Companies get around this limitation by broadening their services to increase the frequency of contacts. Hewlett-Packard's printer division used to focus on selling printers; now the firm realizes it can make more money selling printer cartridges, as well as paper, and in the process increase the frequency of its interactions with customers.

• Little value placed on potential benefits. People may not recognize the value in offered personalization, such as when firms offer to customize product offers. Many people don't want to receive any such offers, period. Employees who are offered personalized training may not value it if they were unimpressed with their previous experiences with the training unit, and thus believe that even personalization won't make the time invested worthwhile.

Mass Personalization• Adapting the products of a company according to the preferences and the tasted of

their users/customers. • Mass Customization – the customers may create and choose the products according

to certain specifications and limits (Haag et al., Management Information Systems for the information age: Third Ed., 2006, p.331)– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Configuration_system

• Advantages:– Adapting the products (e.g. baseball jerseys may be customized based on size,

colour, team and logo, however there are a finite number of choices for these variables to choose. To personalize a jersey, a name or number can be administered to it as well as custom fitting) - http://shop.mlb.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=1745986&cp=1960173

– E-commerce: cloths, CDs, music, web design for sites– DELL –personalized computers-

http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/desktops?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Profile/Rule-based personalization• The result of combining the user profile (geographical location,

access device, access mechanism, groups, interests and preferences) with the profile of the content ( attributes – description, structural and administrative metadata – different for each content type), all based on logical rules that reflect certain relevance criteria. The result is the quality of the personalized experience.

• The user profile is used for displaying the right content according to the context. The control of the personalization is given to both the user and the system.

• It is important for exposing the relevant content/ news about new articles, links or events, matching the user's interest or role, instead of waiting for the user to accidentally find it.

• user rules and attributes need to be updated for reflecting the user needs.

Behavior-based personalization• Personalization according to the user behavior in the

system: shoppings, searched terms, click (Chia, 2002)• The system creates a dynamic user model based on the

user profile taking also into account the behavior of other users in the system.

• The model is used for– filtering, – recommending and– Obtaining information and services for the user

• The control of the personalization belongs to the system – the quality of the personalization is given by the amount of interaction between the user and the system

The characteristics of the different types of personalization

http://informationr.net/ir/9-3/paper181.html

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=910251

Rules versus collaborative filtering• When complex filtering is required, a rule-based system may work better

than collaborative filtering, and vice versa. The following table details examples where one type of personalization is better than the other.

Scenario Which filtering type to use

Reason

f the number of items offered and users who purchase them are rather low.

Rules Very little room to compute user similarity necessary for collaborative filtering.

If price points are high or purchasing frequency is low.

Rules Finite, limited arenas - collaborative filtering fails because of the inherent lack of diversity.

If there is a pre-existing dependency between items. Example: Disability policy required for homeowner

Rules Recommending a disability policy just because collaborative filtering says many others "like this user" also bought a policy is incorrect--one must have the homeowner policy first.

If number of items offered and users who purchase them are rather high.

Collaborative Cannot write rules covering all items.

If price points are low, all quite dissimilar, or the products offered have a wide range of user appeal.

Collaborative The wide variance fits the collaborative filtering approach. Collaborative filtering also lowers the risk of making "bad" recommendations.

When not much information is gathered about the user, but the user can be identified, possibly by a login or cookie.

Collaborative In this case, user attributes on which to base rules may be lacking. Collaborative filtering can compare the user's experiences on the site to other users.

Customization VS. Personalization

• Customization is something that the user does to change the sort of content and user interface that one sees– User interface, Layout, Style, Content, Preferences

• Customization is the core of “My” phenomenon• Customization is something that the user does for herself, but

personalization is something that you do for the user• Personalization comes before customization– Personalization can set the overall context within which a

person may customize– But customization cuts across audiences and trumps

personalization

Customization VS. Personalization (Cont.)

• Customization and personalization– Each choice that a user makes to configure your

publication is another piece of data for that person’s user profile

– The way that users differentiate themselves in customizations (especially content customization) can help you see audience distinctions

– You may migrate customization into personalization if some audience consistently choose the simple layout, why not make that layout the default for that audience

Dynamic and Static Personalization

• A complete static site may provide just as much personalization as a dynamic site

• Think about how to provide “Member only” in Web

• Whether you create all the pages beforehand or create each as someone requests, it is a choice that you can make to create the best overall system

Analyzing Personalization

• Think through what personalization you might need. Decide– How much personalization you need (and cost vs.

benefit)– How you will get the information to provide

personalization– How you should segment your audience– What components and elements you want to

deliver to each audience segment

Analyzing Personalization (Cont.)

• Create a personalization plan that includes– Audience segment profiles and what you’re delivering to

each segment– A list of Web site behaviors that trigger personalization– Which push campaign you will implement– How your content must be tagged to support

personalization– How the segments, content, behaviors, campaigns, and

tagging work together in a set of rules that describe which content displays under which conditions

Analyzing Personalization (Cont.)

• Integrate the personalization with other parts of the logical design, considering audiences as segmented in the design;– Whether your design is capable of collecting all the

information in the user profile you’ve identified– Whether the segmentation and behavioral assumptions

you’ve made can be tested and validated– Whether the additional work and complexity involved in

creating components and templates is worth the personalization that you’ll achieve

Collaborative filtering• Collaborative filtering (CF) is the process of filtering for information or patterns using

techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc. • Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets. • Collaborative filtering methods have been applied to many different kinds of data including

sensing and monitoring data - such as in mineral exploration, environmental sensing over large areas or multiple sensors; financial data - such as financial service institutions that integrate many financial sources; or in electronic commerce and web 2.0 applications where the focus is on user data, etc.

• For example, a collaborative filtering or recommendation system for music tastes could make predictions about which music a user should like given a partial list of that user's tastes (likes or dislikes). Note that these predictions are specific to the user, but use information gleaned from many users. This differs from the simpler approach of giving an average (non-specific) score for each item of interest, for example based on its number of votes.

• Types:– Active filtering - – Passive filtering– Item based filtering

• Active Filtering - it uses a peer-to-peer approach . This means that it is a system where peers, coworkers, and people with similar interests rate products, reports, and other material objects, also sharing this information over the web for other people to see. It is a system based on the fact that people want to share consumer information with the other peers. The users of active filtering use lists of commonly used links to send the information over the web where others can view it and use the ratings of the products to make their own decisions.

• Passive filtering - collects information implicitly. A web browser is used to record a user’s preferences by following and measuring their actions. These implicit filters are then used to determine what else the user will like and recommend potential items of interest. Implicit filtering relies on the actions of users to determine a value rating for specific content, such as: Purchasing an item, Repeatedly using, saving, printing an item, Referring or linking to a site, Number of times queried

• Item based filtering - Item based filtering is another method of collaborative filtering in which items are rated and used as parameters instead of users. This type of filtering uses the ratings to group various items together in groups so consumers can compare them as well as a rating scale that is available to manufacturers so they can locate where their product stands in the market in a consumer based rating scale.

Innovations in Collaborative Filtering

• New algorithms have been developed for CF as a result of the NetFlix prize (an ongoing open competition for the best collaborative filtering algorithm that predicts user ratings for films, based on previous ratings).

• Cross-System Collaborative Filtering where user profiles across multiple recommender systems are combined in a privacy preserving manner.

• Robust Collaborative Filtering, where recommendation is stable towards efforts of manipulation

Recommender system• form a specific type of information filtering (IF) technique that attempts to present information

items (movies, music, books, news, images, web pages, etc.) that are likely of interest to the user.

• a recommender system compares the user's profile to some reference characteristics, and seeks to predict the 'rating' that a user would give to an item they had not yet considered. These characteristics may be from the information item (the content-based approach) or the user's social environment (the collaborative filtering approach).

• When building the user's profile a distinction is made between explicit and implicit forms of data collection.

• Examples of explicit data collection include the following: Asking a user to rate an item on a sliding scale, Asking a user to rank a collection of items from favorite to least favorite, Presenting two items to a user and asking him/her to choose the best one, Asking a user to create a list of items that he/she likes.

• Examples of implicit data collection include the following: Observing the items that a user views in an online store, Analyzing item/user viewing times, Keeping a record of the items that a user purchases online, Obtaining a list of items that a user has listened to or watched on his/her computer, Analyzing the user's social network and discovering similar likes and dislikes

Recommender system• The recommender system compares the collected data to similar data

collected from others and calculates a list of recommended items for the user.

• Recommender systems are a useful alternative to search algorithms since they help users discover items they might not have found by themselves. Interestingly enough, recommender systems are often implemented using search engines indexing non-traditional data.

Recommender system - examples• Amazon.com (online retailer, includes product recommendations)• Amie Street (music service)• Baynote (recommendation web service)• ChoiceStream (product recommendation system)• Collarity (media recommendation platform)• Daily Me (news recommendation system (hypothetical))• Genius (music service that is part of the iTunes Store)• Heeii (browser plugin web content recommender based on implicit feedback)• inSuggest (recommendation engine)• iLike (music service)• Last.fm (music service)• Loomia (content recommendation engine)• Strands (developer of social recommendation technologies)• Netflix (DVD rental service)• Pandora (music service)• Reddit (news recommendation system)• Slacker (music service)• StumbleUpon (web discovery service)• StyleFeeder (personalized shopping search)

Personalized Ads Attract Big Spenders, Frequent Shoppers

• Overall, 78% of consumers are interested in receiving personalized content, which is consistent with last year’s response.

• The types of content consumers want personalized are relatively consistent with the previous survey findings, with music, books and DVDs being the most popular categories.

• Consumers continue to recognize the value of personalization in social networking with 71% believing that personalization would improve their experience by introducing them to other members with similar interests and preferences.

• Interest in personalized ads is strongest online and on television. A large majority of consumers are interested in personalized advertising distributed through their television (72%) or online (73%). The number of consumers interested in personalization on their mobile device is relatively low (35%).

• 45% of consumers reported receiving personalized recommendations that were a poor match based on their tastes and interests in 2008 (vs. 46% in 2007).

• The most often cited reasons for why recommendations were considered to be poor were that they were inappropriate (such as evening bags for men (51%)), or that they didn’t match their preferences (48%).

More on personalization• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_filtering• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personalized_marketing• http://www.andreas-ittner.de/index_rs.html• http://www.cylogy.com/library/glossary.html• http://www.deitel.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1229• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recommender_system• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence• http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/personalized-

ads-attract-big-spenders-frequent-shoppers-7613/

Content Management• is a set of processes and technologies that support the evolutionary

life cycle of digital information• Digital content may take the form of:

• text, such as documents, • multimedia files, such as audio or video files, • or any other file type which follows a content lifecycle which requires

management• The digital content life cycle consists of 6 primary phases:

• create, • update, • publish, • translate, • archive and • retrieve.

CM –collaborative process• Content management is an inherently collaborative process. It

often consists of the following basic roles and responsibilities:– Creator - responsible for creating and editing content.– Editor - responsible for tuning the content message and the style of

delivery, including translation and localization.– Publisher - responsible for releasing the content for use.– Administrator - responsible for managing access permissions to

folders and files, usually accomplished by assigning access rights to user groups or roles. Admins may also assist and support users in various ways.

– Consumer, viewer or guest- the person who reads or otherwise takes in content after it is published or shared.

• A critical aspect of content management is the ability to manage versions of content as it evolves. Authors and editors often need to restore older versions of edited products due to a process failure or an undesirable series of edits.

CMS - Content management system• computer application used to create, edit, manage, search and publish

various kinds of digital media and electronic text.• frequently used for

• storing, • controlling, • versioning, and • publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators'

manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures• The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio

files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content.• Variations on the same theme:

• Web Content Management, • Digital Asset Management, • Digital Records Management, • Electronic Content Management

CMS features• identification of all key users and their content management roles;• the ability to assign roles and responsibilities to different content categories or

types;• definition of workflow tasks for collaborative creation, often coupled with event

messaging so that content managers are alerted to changes in content (For example, a content creator submits a story, which is published only after the copy editor revises it and the editor-in-chief approves it.);

• the ability to track and manage multiple versions of a single instance of content;• the ability to capture content (e.g. scanning);• the ability to publish the content to a repository to support access to the content

(Increasingly, the repository is an inherent part of the system, and incorporates enterprise search and retrieval.);

• separation of content's semantic layer from its layout (For example, the CMS may automatically set the color, fonts, or emphasis of text.).

Web Content Management Systems• content management system software, usually implemented as a Web

application, for creating and managing HTML content. • It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web

material (HTML documents and their associated images). • A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many

essential Web maintenance functions.• the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users

with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use

• Most systems use a database to store content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system

• A presentation layer displays the content to regular Web-site visitors based on a set of templates.

• Administration is typically done through browser-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a fat client.

WCMS• Automated templates

– Create standard output templates (usually HTML and XML) that can be automatically applied to new and existing content, allowing the appearance of all content to be changed from one central place.

• Easily editable content – Once content is separated from the visual presentation of a site, it usually becomes

much easier and quicker to edit and manipulate. Most WCMS software includes WYSIWYG editing tools allowing non-technical individuals to create and edit content.

• Scalable feature sets – Most WCMS software includes plug-ins or modules that can be easily installed to extend

an existing site's functionality

WCMS• Workflow management

– Workflow is the process of creating cycles of sequential and parallel tasks that must be accomplished in the CMS. For example, a content creator can submit a story, but it is not published until the copy editor cleans it up and the editor-in-chief approves it.

• Delegation – Some CMS software allows for various user groups to have limited privileges over specific

content on the website, spreading out the responsibility of content management.

• Document management – CMS software may provide a means of managing the life cycle of a document from initial

creation time, through revisions, publication, archive, and document destruction.

• Content virtualization – CMS software may provide a means of allowing each user to work within a virtual copy of

the entire Web site, document set, and/or code base. This enables changes to multiple interdependent resources to be viewed and/or executed in-context prior to submission.

WCMS Types• Offline processing

– These systems pre-process all content, applying templates before publication to generate Web pages. Vignette CMS and Bricolage are examples of this type of system.

• Online processing– These systems apply templates on-demand. HTML may be

generated when a user visits the page, or pulled from a cache. (Mambo, Joomla!, Drupal, TYPO3, Zikula and Plone.)

• Hybrid Systems– combine the offline and online approaches (Blosxom)

Document Management Systems

• is a computer system used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents.

• The term has some overlap with the concepts of content management systems and is often viewed as a component of enterprise content management (ECM) systems and related to digital asset management, document imaging, workflow systems and records management systems.

DMSMost methods for managing documents address the following areas:• Location

– Where will documents be stored? Where will people need to go to access documents? Physical journeys to filing cabinets and file rooms are analogous to the onscreen navigation required to use a document management system.

• Filing– How will documents be filed? What methods will be used to organize or index the

documents to assist in later retrieval? Document management systems will typically use a database to store filing information.

• Retrieval– How will documents be found? Typically, retrieval encompasses both browsing through

documents and searching for specific information.

• Security– How will documents be kept secure? How will unauthorized personnel be prevented

from reading, modifying or destroying documents?

DMS• Disaster recovery

– How can documents be recovered in case of destruction from fires, floods or natural disasters?• Retention period

– How long should documents be kept, i.e. retained? As organizations grow and regulations increase, informal guidelines for keeping various types of documents give way to more formal records management practices.

• Archiving– How can documents be preserved for future readability?

• Distribution– How can documents be available to the people that need them?

• Workflow– If documents need to pass from one person to another, what are the rules for how their work should

flow?• Creation

– How are documents created? This question becomes important when multiple people need to collaborate, and the logistics of version control and authoring arise.

• Authentication– Is there a way to vouch for the authenticity of a document ?

• Traceability– When, where and by whom are documents created, modified, published and stored?

DMS Components• Metadata

– stored for each document. Metadata may, for example, include the date the document was stored and the identity of the user storing it

– Some systems also use optical character recognition on scanned images, or perform text extraction on electronic documents.

– The resulting extracted text can be used to assist users in locating documents by identifying probable keywords or providing for full text search capability, or can be used on its own. Extracted text can also be stored as a component of metadata, stored with the image, or separately as a source for searching document collections.

• Integration– Many document management systems attempt to integrate document

management directly into other applications, so that users may retrieve existing documents directly from the document management system repository, make changes, and save the changed document back to the repository as a new version, all without leaving the application.

– Such integration is commonly available for office suites and e-mail or collaboration/groupware software.

DMS Components• Capture

– Images of paper documents using scanners or multifunction printers. – Optical character recognition (OCR) software is often used, whether integrated into the

hardware or as stand-alone software, in order to convert digital images into machine readable text.

• Indexing– Indexing may be as simple as keeping track of unique document identifiers; – it takes a more complex form, providing classification through the documents' metadata

or even through word indexes extracted from the documents' contents. – Indexing exists mainly to support retrieval.

• Storage– Storage of the documents often includes management of those same documents; – where they are stored, – for how long, – migration of the documents from one storage media to another – and eventual document destruction

DMS Components• Retrieval

– Simple retrieval of individual documents can be supported by allowing the user to specify the unique document identifier, and having the system use the basic index (or a non-indexed query on its data store) to retrieve the document.

– More flexible retrieval allows the user to specify partial search terms involving the document identifier and/or parts of the expected metadata.

– This would typically return a list of documents which match the user's search terms• Distribution

– A published document for distribution has to be in a format that can not be easily altered.

• Security– Some document management systems have a rights management module that allows an

administrator to give access to documents based on type to only certain people or groups of people

• Workflow– Manual workflow requires a user to view the document and decide who to send it to– Rules-based workflow allows an administrator to create a rule that dictates the flow of

the document through an organization: for instance, an invoice passes through an approval process and then is routed to the accounts payable department

(A simple example would be to enter an invoice amount and if the amount is lower than a certain set amount, it follows different routes through the organization)

DMS Components• Collaboration

– Collaboration should be inherent in an EDMS. Documents should be capable of being retrieved by an authorized user and worked on

• Versioning – is a process by which documents are checked in or out of the

document management system, allowing users to retrieve previous versions and to continue work from a selected point

• Publishing– Publishing a document is sometime tedious and involves the

procedures of proofreading, peer or public reviewing, authorizing, printing and approving

Enterprise Content Management• Oricare din strategiile si tehnologiile utilizate pentru

gestionarea capturii, stocarii, securitatii, controlul reviziei, regasirii, distribuirii, pastrarii si distrugerii documentelor la nivel de organizatie

• Gestioneaza continut structurat si nestructurat• Recent trends in business and government indicate

that ECM is becoming a core investment for organizations of all sizes, more immediately tied to organizational goals than in the past: increasingly more central to what an enterprise does, and how it accomplishes its mission (AIIM Industry Watch: State of the ECM Industry, "The ECM Association Moving from Why? To How?: The Maturing of ECM Users". AIIM Association for Information and Image Management international, Silver Springs, 2006.)

Traditional Components

• Document Management• Colaborare/ groupware• Web Content Management• Records Management• Workflow / Business Process Management -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow