A White Paper

on
Online Sports Portal

Submitted By:

Mantu Kumar Murmu (09BM8093)

Swapnil Hedaoo (09BM8096)

Shashi Kant (09BM8095)

Pintu Halder (09BM8087)

Online Sports Portal

Introduction of a Portal
A web portal, also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified
way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-
mail, top news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment. Portals provide a way for
enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple
applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether.

What is Online Sports Portal?

In an online sports portal one can find useful sports related information including sports news,
sports games and much more. Usually the portal is categorized in different sports sections so it is
very easy to find a section. One can find all sports including cricket, hockey, football, soccer,
wrestling, chess, car racing, swimming, boxing and baseball matches. Whatever the user likes in
sports, he will find every type of stuff on the sports portal.

Pre Web 2.0

Web 1.0 was used before the advent of the Web 2.0 . Web 1.0 began with the release of the
WWW to the public in 1991, and is the general term that has been created to describe the Web
before the "bursting of the Dot-com bubble" in 2001, which is seen by many as a turning point
for the internet.

Web 1.0 trends included worries over privacy concerns resulting in a one-way flow of
information, through websites which contained "read-only" material. Widespread computer
illiteracy and slow internet connections added to the restrictions of the internet, which
characterized Web 1.0. Such adjustments to the internet, the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is a
direct result of the change in the behavior of those who use the World Wide Web. Now, during
Web 2.0, the use of the Web can be characterized as the decentralization of website content,
which is now generated from the "bottom-up", with many users being contributors and producers
of information, as well as the traditional consumers.

To take an example from above, Personal web pages were common in Web 1.0, and these
consisted of mainly static pages hosted on free hosting services such as Geocities. Nowadays,
dynamically generated blogs and social networking profiles, such as Myspace and Facebook, are
more popular, allowing for readers to comment on posts in a way that was not available during
Web 1.0.
What is Web 2.0?
Definition: The term "Web 2.0" (2004–present) is commonly associated with web applications
that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and
collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities,
hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs etc.
A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in
contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information
that is provided to them.

The term "Web 2.0" was introduced in October 2004 by O'Reilly at a conference in San
Fransisco. Web 2.0 is much more than just pasting a new user interface onto an old applica-
tion. It’s a way of thinking, a new perspective on the entire business of software— from
concept through delivery, from marketing through support. Web 2.0 thrives on network
effects: databases that get richer the more people interact with them, applications that are
smarter the more people use them, marketing that is driven by user stories and experiences,
and applications that interact with each other to form a broader computing platform. Usually
the owner of a website, a webpage or a web application using Web 2.0 gives up all the
control and ownership of information for the benefit of the users.

Revenue Model of Sports Portals

 Advertisements: Most sports portal earns the bulk of their money through advertising. Ad
networks can handle the sale and display of ads on your site. Pay Per Click (PPC) is an
Internet advertising model used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when
their ad is clicked. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a
bidding system. Cost per click (CPC) is the amount of money an advertiser pays search
engines and other Internet publishers for a single click on its advertisement that brings one
visitor to its website.

 Sponsorships: Sponsorships offer a powerful way to build brand awareness. Through

sponsorships, companies can attach their name to appropriate parts of the sports portal.
Individuals within and outside organizations need to be identified, who might be willing to
commit their money, or their organization's money, to the site.

 Affiliates: Affiliate programs, provides the first ways for early solo and small Web
publishers to make a few bucks on their websites. In these programs, an online retailer will
pay the website, the publisher, a percentage on sales made after customers click through from
the website to the retailer's site. Links can include traditional banner ads, search forms and
links to individual products. Merchant directories like Commission Junction and LinkShare
 helps to find retailers that offer products that fit your site's topic and audience. Once
registered with a merchant's program, one can create an ad or product link on the site using a
snippet of Web code downloaded from the retailer. Some merchants go further and allow
creating virtual storefronts that match the design of the site, but where the retailer still
handles all the inventory and commerce.

Examples of Some Popular Sports Portals

 SportSnipe - Sports New Made Easy

SportSnipe is a sports news aggregator that combines over 1,300 sports feeds from around
the world and organizes them by sport, source, and team.

Features

 New Story Highlight

 MyPage: The user can customize his page and add RSS feed
 Sports News Search Engine: Sportsnipe.com has a database filled with all the
recent stories available on the website.
 Video and image sharing
 SportSnipe widget that can be displayed on any website

 WorkoutBox - Make Your Fitness Simple

WorkoutBOX features professionally designed workouts with step-by-step video
instructions, combined with personalized support from an expert fitness team. The
WorkoutBOX fitness team is a group of highly experienced fitness professionals with
members in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. The user can get different specialized
trainings as per his/her requirements.

Features

 Forums
 Discussion topics: Fitness & Exercise; Diet & Nutrition; Training program helps
etc.
 Blogs
 Online Shopping of Fitness product.
 Instructions on workouts.
 Training program

 Sportingo – The Online Destination Built for and By Fans

 The site is first and foremost about sharing our passion and opinions with sport fans around
the world, hearing their views and reading their copy as fan journalists.

Features

 Professional editors to guide the users for writing the articles.

 Top articles are displayed on the front page
 Sports Blogs.
 Sports Forums.
 Sports Videos.

 Fittron – To Fit Your World

Fittron is one stop for all fitness needs. It is a comprehensive online database of fitness
professionals and facilities that users can view at no cost. In addition to its extensive roster of
fitness professionals and businesses, Fittron features an online solicitation board where
motivated users can post fitness ads.

Features

 Create a profile.
 Download coupon
 Renew coupon
 Get trained from the professional by telephone and fitness packages.

The coupon can be bought online and then can be redeemed from any of the Fittron stores.

Future of the Sports Portals

With the increase in the number of sport followers the future of the sports portals is really
promising provided the portals are updated with the help of the latest technologies.

Suggestions for Improvement

With passage of time sport portals will have to continuously keep on updating themselves with
new features to keep the users interests. Features like chatting with the sports experts, uploading
interviews of famous sports personalities should, online booking of tickets, live telecast of the
matches etc should be made available to the users which will lead to increase of the network
traffic as well as the revenue of the sports portal. With the availability of a technology like web
2.0 adding these features won’t be a big challenge for the sports portals.

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