Desi portals put info at your fingertips

A number of large access providers now offer portals for their own users. Companies with portal sites have attracted the investors because of the large number of visitors they command. Recently even countries have started such portals to promote tourism, services, jobs and so on. Bangladesh has its own share of portals though most of them are not that 'widely' popular.

bangladesh.com is one of those very few portals lots of people know about. Anyone with a view to know about Bangladesh would be able to learn a lot from here. It has a directory of Bangladeshi links to interesting sites, a search facility, news, weather, business information, a map, a community forum and other interesting services.

The only difficulty one might face would be finding the contact address of the developers of this site.

Then comes bangladesh.cc. It opens up with a page that looks a lot like a windows explorer directory. But it actually is the directory of all the bangladeshi links available through bangladesh.cc. Unlike bangladesh.com, this portal offers free e-mail service, classified ads, information on Islam as a religion and matrimonial information. Some aspects of the portal are still under development and once these are completed this would definitely be a portal worth visiting.

www.bangla2000.com proclaims to be the largest web portal for Bangladesh with all the necessary services. But the news updates are probably made on a monthly basis that may cause problems for browsers who depend on the portal for breaking news and recent happenings in the country. The portal is being moved to another location and hopefully it would be a lot more efficient once that happens.

Beside these general web portals, Bangladesh also has a number of specialised portals. One of them is www.webbangladesh.com. The portal has a free email service.

www.virtualbangladesh.com, is a well organised portal with a colorful and artistic home page. It lacks the free email service and classified ads but has all other aspects like news, tours and so on. A necessary and helpful service like the English-Bengali online dictionary is also provided.

Last but not the least is www.bangladeshinfo.com that provide updated news and services. The team working behind the portal would like to further promote it through media accreditation.

"Most people do not even know about these Bangladeshi portals as these are not receiving the necessary exposure," said Mr. Sajidul Haque, a senior executive of bangladeshinfo.com.

" We have been operating for more than two years now; and only at the last Bangladesh Computer Society Fair did we get the chance to inform Minister Tariqul Islam about our needs." said Haque.

Reportedly, a verbal confirmation from the minister has been obtained and media accreditation for bangladeshinfo.com is already underway.