The Communities in  the Liferay Portal possess their own Document Library and Image Gallery, both of which has customizable folders and act as shared drive for all the members. Multiple files can be loaded to both the document library and the image gallery, rather than one by one. Administrator authorized personnels alone can have an access to the contents and therefore secure.  

Liferay, a technology for application integration, allows dynamic tagging, easy search engine and facilitates automatic update of sitemaps. Content creation  and its publishing in liferay is of much ease,  as there is a rich text editor with spell check. It can support multiple languages.Liferay allows integration with microsoft office.  SharePoint protocols allow users to open, save and  and share documents directly among Liferay and Microsoft Office. Live editing of webpages is possible with  the liferay, and this allows you to edit and have updates on a site in real-time.

Modules and themes  availability

The availability of modules, including RSS feeds, polls, and language internationalization makes it easy for the users of joomla to publish contents to the web without possessing previous web design experiences. Since the code  is open source, anyone can write the  modules and  can  have extensions of the system.  Themes  are the joomla design elements created by web designers. Few Joomla themes are avilable in free, however certain designers will make custom themes for a price.

The Drupal CMS is mostly preferred to other content management solutions since it possess the following features:

• Advanced URL Control
• Custom Content Types and Views
• Revision Control
• Taxonomy
• Plentiful modules
• Versioning is available
• Very flexible in its configuration
• Page titles and meta tags
• Excellent Documentation
• PHP Template
• Large and Friendly Community

Modules availability and simplicity

Modules are the  plug-ins developed by the user community to extent  the functionality of Drupal. Modules are not built-in with Drupal Core version releases, since they are not a part of Drupal Core. Modules are always kept outside of the core releases and ensure that module versions that are being downloaded, matches the core releases. The module system of drupal is on the basis of the concept of hooks which is a PHP function. It is the concept of hooks that makes the drupal different from other content management solutions. If you are new to drupal or you are not familiar with programming, you can create your own modules with a  unique name. Your module can be saved in any location where Drupal looks for the modules.

Themes availability and simplicity

Themes of drupal changes the looks and feel of your site.  Drixel 5, Fuse Mobile, Zen, Aquia marina, Zero point, Root candy, Open Grid, Bali Theme, Hi5, wLite, Titan etc are some of the themes available.

Public relations are not something that one can just jump into and be great at. Public relation is an event management; media training; strategic planning; crisis management; internal communication, etc.

All the posts made in a social media are visible to everybody and they can post comments. Posting comments can be for better or for worse. A bad comment about a product by any customer spreads like a wild fire as a result it can discourage other customers from buying the product as well as ruin the reputation of the company. But one thing a company needs to take care is never insult the customers and do not respond until there is anything positive to say.
Reading friends’ comments is one of the major features of Facebook. But some malicious applications send a notification to the users that someone has “commented on your post”. However, once the user clicks on that notification, they are lead to a harvesting sites which looks like a Facebook log-in page and asks users to enter their log-in information in order to “enjoy the full functionality” of the application. It then steals that log-in information and then spams friends.
Sometimes companies enter social media without knowing their objectives or the most suitable platform for them. Also a key factor is to know the customers, where they are and what they need. Most companies only talk about their products or services and not looking at the bigger picture, that way it would be difficult for people to be engaged. If a company creates an online presence that’s open and allows customer feedback, it creates the expectation that the company is going to do something with that feedback but if no actions are taken then its equal to being ignored. When policies, procedures, products and processes become more important than the customer, there’s no way social media efforts can be effective.

People joining a social network usually create a profile and then build a network by connecting to friends and contacts in the network, or by inviting other contacts and friends to join the

social network.

These communities retain the interest of the members by providing services that are entertaining and help them to expand their networks.

Social Networking Sites:

MySpace

MySpace is one of the world’s largest social networks, with about 125 million users. MySpace quickly grew to become the world’s largest social network, before being overtaken by Facebook. User pages are highly customizable and support integration with widgets such as Slide or YouTube. MySpace provides users with a way to connect around content and culture.

MySpace allows users to customize their user profile pages by entering HTML but does not support JavaScript. Videos and flash-based content can be included this way. Users also have the option to add music to their profile pages via MySpace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs for use on MySpace.

A user can also change the general appearance of his or her page by entering CSS to override the page’s default style sheet using MySpace editors. There are several independent web sites offering MySpace layout design utilities which let a user select options and preview what their page will look like with them.

MySpace has recently added “Profile Customizer” to the site that allows users to change their profile through MySpace. With the help of this feature the CSS loading delay is bypassed.

Facebook

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 400 million users. It allows anyone to develop applications and run them on Facebook. This has enabled Facebook users able to play games with other members, compare each others’ tastes, send ‘virtual gifts’ etc.

Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information and other personal information. Communicating with friends and other users can be done through private or public messages or a chat feature. Users can also create and join interested groups, some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising. To overcome concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings.

The website is free to users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads. By default, the viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same network.

The media often compares Facebook to MySpace, but one significant difference between the two websites is the level of customization. MySpace allows users to customize their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook only allows plain text.

Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a space on every user’s profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see; Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual “poke” to each other (a notification then tells a user that they have been poked); Photos, where users can upload albums and photos; and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions. Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user’s profile can also view that user’s Wall. Over time, Facebook has added many more features to its website.

Bebo
Bebo is an acronym for Blog Early, Blog Often. It’s a social networking site which is popular among school-age children. It actually has the most number of members. Users receive a personal profile page where they can post blogs, photographs, music, videos and questionnaires to which other users may answer.

Bebo is similar to other social networking sites. Users may add others as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Each profile has a comment section where other users can leave a message, and a list of the user’s friends. By default, when an account is created the profile is private, which limits access to friends specifically added. The user may select the “Public Profile” option so as the profile will still be visible to any other members. Profiles may be personalized by a design template that is the background of the user’s profile, known as a skin.

Profiles may include quizzes which offer multiple choice, polls for their friends to vote in and comment on, photo albums which allows the user to upload an unlimited number of images with a maximum limit of 48 per album, blogs with a comments section, a list of bands of which the user is a fan, a list of groups that the user is a member of. A ‘Video Box’ may be added, either hot-linked from YouTube, uploaded directly to Bebo’s servers via Motionbox or copied from a Bebo Media Content Provider’s page.

Members can view the recent changes friends have made to their homepage from the ‘Home’ menu. These changes can include uploaded photos, updated flashboxes and newly added videos and friends. A friend’s updates to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services can also be viewed, if those friends have linked those accounts to their Bebo profile. A map feature enables members to see who has being viewing their profile.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. It allows Users build their business and professional contacts into an online network. It has been criticized for not being open enough and for charging for too many of its Services but next to Facebook it is still the most popular online social network among the youngsters.

The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities. Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates. Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers. Users can post their own photos and view photos of others. Users can follow different companies and can get notification about the new joining and offers available. Users can bookmark jobs which they would like to apply for.

Social Bookmarking Sites:

StumbleUpon – It is the most popular bookmarking site among bloggers. StumbleUpon uses innovative approach of discovering and rating the web sites, and sharing them among peers with similar interests.

Twitter - Possibly the second best social networking and micro-blogging site. You can easily share your blog content over E-mail, SMS and instant messaging using Twitter services, and it propagates rapidly among users who have signed up to receive your content.

Digg – Another popular bookmarking site, which integrates bookmarking, blogging and feed syndication under one roof.

Del.icio.us – One of the popular social bookmarking sites, which allows users to tag the web pages with keywords.

Reddit – A social news web site, where users can post links to their content. Users can also vote and comment on the bookmarked links.

Furl – A very popular bookmarking site, which gives 5GB of space to store your bookmarks with full copies of web pages.

Technorati - It is search engine for blogs. You can find millions of blogs in the Technorati index on diverse topics. You can easily sign up and can get your blog listed in one of the most rich blog index on web.

Mixx – Submit your favorite links, news, videos and much more on this excellent web content tagging site.

Spurl - An easy to use, effective bookmarking site that keeps tracks of all your bookmarks. You can export and import your bookmarks to and from various file formats.

Diigo – It not only allows you to bookmark and tag web pages, but a unique feature to add sticky notes to specifically highlighted part or whole of the web page.

Slashdot - Basically a technology related new website, where you can post and comment the technology related web content.

Propeller – Another good site for submitting your favorite web pages and commenting yours as well as on other’s submitted web content.

Google Bookmarks – As the name implies, good bookmarking tool from the web search giant Google.

Plugim – It is a very popular internet marketing community, where people shares articles, projects and of course web pages.

Linkagogo – Yet another bookmarking site. You can easily organize, share, import and export your bookmarks from anywhere.

Oyax – A social bookmark manger. You can easily add your web links and share it with Oyax community. Oyax is an initiative of ‘Linux Exchange Community’.

Bibsonomy – Community driven social bookmarking and publication sharing system. Store and tag your bookmarks with keywords on the server, and share it with peers.

Swik – Another community driven resource for people who use open source software. Submit and share news, articles and other cool stuffs from open source arena.

Indianpad – A social bookmarking and blogging site. Users can comment and vote on the submitted content.

Danogo – One can not only bookmark and share, but also blog, place your ads, play online games, and ask questions and shop.

HealthRanker – As the name suggests, a place to submit and share medical and health related web content.

Bookmark Tracker – Neat and clean interface with no annoying ads. It is an excellent, easy-to-use web service that allows you to safely store and organize your bookmarks online and securely access them from anywhere on the Internet.

Fetch – A popular service for posting and sharing small business related web sites of diverse streams. Mostly popular with entrepreneurs having small businesses and presence on web.

Wirefan – A rich, community driven social bookmarking site. Neat interface with loads of features.

Mister-wong – Available in six different languages, Mister-Wong is one of the popular bookmarking site.

Connotea – This site is dedicated to post and share web content for researchers, clinicians and scientists.

Better Serving of Customers through Social Media
Social media is one way to keep in touch with the customers. A new business may want to focus on establishing through leadership, while a more mature business should aim for customer support. In all cases, creating a product that actually solves problems for customers, present and future, should be every business’s top priority — and the company should be using social media to help customers to figure out what that product is.

Social media is used to help create and share content, as well as create discussions around this content. It’s also used to drive awareness and get feedback from the public. The company’s social media strategy should include actively monitoring Twitter, Facebook, blogs, discussion forums and other outpost communities, with the purpose of learning, engaging and forming relationships. The support from partners, resellers, and blogger outreach, is tremendously important. Forming and nurturing these relationships is crucial to the success of a product.

Sales should be about building relationships via social channels and growing them into offline relationships. A company should also be using social media listening techniques to gather intelligence around the customers and prospects’ businesses to help drive better and richer conversations.

Managing International Relationships Online
Sometimes the hardest part of having international clients is finding a way to connect with them. Small businesses often have to worry about different time zones, different languages, and even different customs and traditions.

Phoning long distance can rack up bills pretty quickly. Free chat services like Skype, Google Chat and Campfire are fast, effective, and accepted ways to speak to the clients. Skype is an instant messenger with a built-in web-video function. The company can use it as either a phone, IM chat, or for face-to-face discussion online. After both parties set up an account, the whole process is free and relatively pain free. Also, some phone and portable devices have Skype enabled. Google Chat offers similar services to Skype, with expanded video and phone options being included.

Social Media to Manage a Brand
Most companies attempt to manage their brands using social media. The greatest challenge that faces brands in social media today and tomorrow is the culture shift required not only to support engagement in social media but also adapt to become an authority within each network of relevance.  Some companies hop on to social media hoping that they can advertise their products, and get people interested. But its necessary to post regular updates on the products as people wait for updates. Feedbacks on different products can be received from customers, if the company creates an online presence.

Professional Networking
Professional networking has been made exponentially easier with social media. Social media lets people connect with others in their industry and gather information that can help them. Each social media platform has a certain reputation. For instance, LinkedIn is generally a business site, while Twitter is a mix professional and personal content.

Every communication sent on social media needs to be customized. When someone approaches for a help via social media, they should know what is wanted out of the interaction. This can be achieved through proper research and relevant questions.

A  CMS consists of two elements:

• Content management application (CMA) – Allows the content manager  who are not familiar with the language HTML, to create and edit the contents on the webpage 
• Content delivery application (CDA) – Compile the managed content  and update the Web site.

From managing  the contents of a  normal website  to allowing collaborative documentation, Content management Systems perform many functions. A content management system enables the users to add and  share the data, but has a controlled access to data, based on user roles and also to develop a better communication between users.  The storage and retrieval of data is of much ease. Moreover, it offers a trouble-free Report writing , reduces recurring duplicate inputs.

Types of Content management Systems

Content management System can generally be classified into two categories:

• Enterprise Content management System

Enterprise Content management system is used in enterprise or corporate level. It deals with records, contents and documents of an enterprise. According to the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) International (the worldwide association for enterprise content management), an enterprise CMS can be defined as ‘the strategies and methods to perform capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver contents and documents related to organizational process. Its tools and strategies allow the management of an organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists’. This software package enhances functionality and precision.

• Web content management System

The content management system  used to manage the webpage. It controls a collection of web elements like HTML, images etc. Users are allowed to  update  portions of a Web site or collaborate in a “community.”  They bring quick  functionality to a website and that too easily.In addition,Web content management system has the  features such as project management, file checking in and out, email and internal forums.

• Document  content management system:

A software package for managing documents for electronic publishing. It offers the capabilities such as  storage, versioning, security, as well as indexing and retrieval capabilities. They track and store  the electronic documents of paper documents.

Types

Majority of online advertising costs money depending on its usage or interaction,

• Floating ad: An ad which superimposes a user requested page , moves across the user’s screen or floats above the content and disappears after a specific time period . It appears either in a full screen or a semi rectangular window and may or may not have an option to close it.
• Expanding ad: An ad which changes size and which may alter the contents of the webpage. It expands only if clicked, changes its size and alters the contents.
• Polite ad As a non-streaming ad takes a long time to download, it is better to download a large ad into smaller ones so that visitor’s are not affected while viewing the contents.
• Pop-up: An ad that displays in a new browser window which appears in different shapes and sizes, with only the Close, Minimize and Maximize commands.
• Pop-under: An ad that displays in a new browser window behind the current browser window and only viewed when one or more active windows are closed.
• Wallpaper ad: An ad that changes the background of the pages being viewed.
• Trick banner: An ad attempting to trick people into clicking by disguising the fact that they are advertising devices.
• Video ad: An ad that displays actual moving video clips. Video advertisements are mostly used in televisions and also widely used in marketing. Youtube is an example for a video ad, where on searching for a particular product or services, a number of related videos ad’s appear.
• Map ad: An ad that gives the exact location on an electronic map such as on Google Maps.
• Mobile ad: A mobile can be used as a medium of advertising. It can be either a text or a multimedia message.
• Interstitial ad: An ad that places a full page message before a user reaches the destination page. It lasts for ten seconds or less.

E-mail advertising:Email advertising is an online advertising method by which exclusive email messages are sent to people all over the world to introduce their products and services. Email marketing gained popularity in the 1990s.

The commercial email advertisements usually include links to websites, on which a consumer can click to purchase a product, or get more information about it. The number of emails opened as well as the number of times the links were clicked are then tracked by the marketer and finally tracks the conversion rate. Conversion rate is the number of sales completed as a result of the email.

Affiliate marketing: Affiliate advertising is a basically a medium of online marketing. Affiliate marketing is on an action basis such as a click on a link or click and purchase the product to which the link brings them.

Three main types of affiliate ads:

• Pay-per-Click- A customer by just clicking a link related to an affiliated website and leaving it without leading to the actual website, will remit some money into affiliates account.
• Pay-per-Sale: A customer on purchasing a product as a result of affiliate marketing, a percentage of total cost is remitted as commission into the affiliate’s account.
• Pay-per-Lead- A customer on registering at the merchant’s website as a result of the affiliate marketing a pre-determined amount is remitted to affiliate’s account.

Contextual advertising

Contextual advertising is the latest online advertising technology that allows an organization to advertise in major websites and portals and it relates directly to the contents of the webpage. Contextual advertisements can take the form of

1. Visual ads (Eg. Banner)
2. Text ads (similar to Pay per Click)

Behavioral targeting

Behavioral targeting is aiming to increase the effectiveness of campaigns. It’s a process by which data’s are collected on behavior of the internet user’s such as browsing habits and search queries and these in turn serves the targeted advertisements. Behavioral targeting increases relevancy on the basis of collected information and promotes a better conversion rate.

Semantic advertising

Semantic advertising is simply an Advertising that uses semantic web technology. It deals only with the current piece of content that you are interacting with.

Four different types of Semantc advertising :

1. Contextual advertising with semantics: Analyze the web pages contents and determine the ads that are most relevant to serve there.
2. Semantic search advertising: A semantic technology that delivers a better search experience
3. Dynamic advertising content: Allows programmatic exchange of data over the internet.
4. Advertising inside semantic data: It is also possible to advertise through other vendors by automatically recognizing the data through semantic methods and posting it into the appropriate category

Some businesses only have a Facebook page to promote their products, while others combine it with either Twitter, a blog, a YouTube channel, a Flickr slideshow, etc. This is done with an intention to utilize the public relations space that these services provide. The main reason is that it’s cheaper to use online social networking as most of it is usually free.

A key element  to constantly engage a fan is by giving them latest updates on the company’s products and asking questions and more importantly it’s the use of videos and photos as well as giving discounts, coupons, loyalty points, exclusive fan offers, polls, competitions and much more. By understanding how consumers process product information, or more simply, how their purchase decisions are influenced, campaigns are planned so that it reaches their target audience in the places where they are influenced. The growth of social media has driven consumers online to research and validate their purchasing decisions.

When a company is looking at having communications with their customers, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are the tools used. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Digg leads to great exposure when a company wants to promote its brand around the web. In order to increase the traffic in the company’s site Digg and StumbleUpon are the tools used. If a company wants their site to be indexed easily by any search engine, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Del.icio.us are the best options. Video is a powerful tool to promote a brand. If the content is compelling, entertaining, or informative the fans may even share it. It’s necessary to choose the appropriate social media tool according to the campaign. Social media can strengthen the company’s brand.

Some companies hop on to social media hoping that they can advertise their products, and get people interested. But its necessary to post regular updates on the products as people wait for updates.

Make Real Goals and Achievable Goals for Your Business- You need to create realistic goals before venturing into online business activity. You should know what you want to achieve from your business, and set your expectations accordingly.

Any business activity which is conducted online is termed as online business. No matter what type of business it is, when any product or service is sold online, it comes under online business. All you require to launch an online business is a website. A well developed website will help you to sell your products and services online. You will need to invest a good amount of money initially; only then can you expect significant returns. But you won’t be investing as much money as you would otherwise invest in any traditional business. Initial cost includes setting up the resources such as domain names, web hosting, email auto responder services, and online marketing and advertising. Allocate as much time for your online business activity as you can devote to it.

Online business activity can be done even from your home, and you don’t actually need a big space for it. business is a serious activity, and those who don’t consider it serious are bound to lose. You must know that every online business has many competitors, and you cannot beat the competition without being serious about your business.

You should have some type of metrics or analytic application on your website. This is a way of measuring traffic to your website, and a feature offered by some applications is the ability to review browser information. You may want your website to have a certain look and feel. Business is about showing your customers that you understand them and are flexible to their needs. The home page of the web site should have a clear description of what your company offers. The website should contain contact information like phone number, email Id and physical location. The website should also list customer testimonials, client lists, case studies, awards and recognition you have received. The website should have an encryption system that helps protect the privacy of data exchanged between a customer and a website like credit card information.

The website should be easy to use and navigate. It should provide a clear guidance on any process that a customer is carrying out. The customer should be able to give feedback on your products and services. The website should be protected from hackers from stealing sensitive information. The web site coding should be done by using proper optimization techniques so that it is indexed easily by search engines.

E-commerce which means buying and selling of goods and services on the internet is a very important part of online business.

Aspects of e-commerce include:

• E-tailing or “virtual storefronts” on websites with online catalogs.
• The gathering and use of demographic data through Web contacts.
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the business-to-business exchange of data.
• Email, instant messaging and social networking as media for reaching prospects and established customers.
• Business-to-business buying and selling.
• The security of business transactions.