CivicLife getting personal

CivicLife.com, a start-up that is building a World Wide Web portal to provide

information and transactions for all civic institutions, has partnered with

SilverStream Software Inc. to enable individual consumers to customize the

site.

Following a trend that allows consumers to tailor public and private

portals to their needs, CivicLife.com's move is an attempt to make its site

as user-friendly as possible, said Dave DeRosa, vice president of marketing.

With SilverStream's ePortal product, CivicLife.com will enable users

to choose from a variety of "channels," depending on what information they

want to access regularly.

E-government services — tied directly into the government's back-end

computer systems — will also be available if governments work with the company.

The portal will be rolled out at the beginning of 2001, DeRosa said.

CivicLife.com is based in Redwood City, Calif., and Ottawa, Canada,

and is working to build portals to serve both countries. SilverStream specializes

in e-business applications and is based in Burlington, Mass.