[Zope] Zone product

[Michael Bernstein]

Michel Pelletier wrote:

> Well then I suggest if you have any influence in that area to convince them
> to use Zope. ;)  You dropped the magic new inter-techie-buzzword, portal.
> It's been flying around the office here for a couple weeks now.  I think it's
> time to (once again) get a list discussion on it.  Ken has come up with
> the name 'Zone ' for a portal product.

'Portal' is shorthand for an aggregation of information and/or services
in a site that is useful enough to cause people to use that site as
their primary entry point to the internet.

Although I feel that Zope is particularly well suited to creating and
maintaining this sort of aggregation, the 'Zone' product (formerly known
as 'ZopeSpot') is only one kind of service, and hardly deserves the
label 'Portal' on it's own. Although very useful, I do not consider
Slashdot to be a 'Portal'. Indeed, I wouldn't want them to try and be a
'Portal'.

The problem with the 'Portal' definition, is that the bar is constantly
being raised. At this point in time 'Portal' sites include services such
as free email, free homepages, search and directory services, classified
ads, comparative shopping agents, auctions, chat, and mounds of content.
This is causing the major players to become unfocused and
undifferentiated in their pusuit of eyeballs.

Personally, I am more interested in building destinations, rather than
doorways. A community site focused on a particular affinity group is
going to enjoy a lot more long term brand loyalty, in my opinion. BTW,
the next jargon-du-jour for this sort of site is going to be 'Hub'.
Slashdot is a 'Hub'.

> A random quote here in
> the office is that Zone should 'smoke slashdot'.  But paul also mentioned
> that we should support a couple different models of news-item like
> objects; shashdot is like a high speed feed of posts off the wire, we also
> want
> to support a more formal setup.

Yes, the more flexibility you build into the product, the better. Don't
forget to provide 'Editor' type privileges in addition to the
'Moderator' privileges.

Michael Bernstein.