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Black Hills Portal Everwhelming Success
Added: (Sun Oct 24 2004)
Blackhillsportal.com leader in portal news technology
250,000 hits in 2 months By Black Hills Portal
"We have only been up for 3 months and we are already at almost 1/2 million hits" reports Scott Prentice of Blackhillsportal.com. "I see people beginning to understand the power of portal technology." Prentice, operations manager for the portal, began this mammoth project 2 years ago from his home. "I was frustrated with the fact that a business owner or individual had to pay to publish public service information, events, announcements" says Prentice. That frustration pushed Prentice to the formation of what is being held as a model form of the latest internet technology called the "community portal". "I knew there had to be a way to help people to blow their own horns about themselves, their businesses, their organizations, accomplishments or passions without having to sell their firstborn child. What Blackhillsportal.com strives to do is tell our readers about the great things that are happening in the Black Hills and the wonderful people who live here. With so much negative in the news we wanted to change that focus to the positive"
Not your ordinary news site, Blackhillsportal.com is based on a technology that is dynamic (interactive and changing) on the web. Where the majority of online news sites are simple "html", "we are dynamic cold fusion" quoted Prentice. Prentice describes "html" as a plate of food set before you that you can only look at. "you can't smell it or eat it, you can only look at it. What we have is a buffet! Not only can you look at it and smell it, you can select what you want on your plate and consume it." Prentice describes his site as "the local online paper on steroids! or simply an electronic town square."
Prentice describes his Blackhillsportal.com as completely interactive, "individuals can actually log on and put in their own news and go live instantly." Additionally, Prentice credits his success to the fact that search engines look for text that is constantly changing. With over 12,000 businesses as well as 170,000 people within the Black Hills region all giving and getting information from one site, Prentice reports that a site like his climbs to the top of the search engines very quickly because of it's constantly changing text. "When web robots crawl your site, they look for changes in content in text. Blackhillsportal.com offers is a place for businesses and individuals to submit that text, through news articles, events, announcements, classified ads, e-coupons, a dynamic dining guide, and dynamic business directory. The search engines find the business's websites because they find the portal site". Prentice anticipates his site will be at a million hits/month by this time next year.
Prentice reports that sister sites in Texas and the East Coast have also had immeasurable success and that other community portal sites around the country that are being modeled after the Blackhillsportal.com. Community Portals are the new way to access local information on the web. Unlike the concept of thinking globally, Blackhillsportal.com realizes that people of the Black hills are consumers in the local community. "Even the local newspapers are realizing that there is power in the internet but none of them have the power of 'self publishing, coldfusion' technology offered by Blackhillsportal.com. They, the newspapers, are the experts at what they do, and that is to print the paper. We are the experts in internet news technology, hands down!"
Prentice also site the affordability of this service for a business as a cause for it's immediate success. "Any individual can access this service for free. A business can access this service for a small yearly fee ($400/year). With this, a business can publish articles, post job needs, view resumes, publish e-coupons, announcements, events, classified ads and have an enhanced directory listing. All of these features create dynamic links to the business's own web site. A business who does not have a web site can use their expanded business directory listing as a web site itself. This site is unlimited in the amount of information you can submit with text, pictures and graphics. Prentice calls this a "no-brainer" for any business.