Metabrowse Your Web Routine? 29
AJ-perler asks: "About 2 years ago 'Metabrowsers' were the new hot browsing tools that addressed the trend of users frequently browsing specific sites. Business 2.0 ran an article late 2000 about the problems metabrowser companies faced. I think metabrowsers are interesting and useful, but I haven't seen mention of them for a long time. Do any Slashdot readers use these few that have survived? Is the general public web savvy enough, even today, for this type of browsing?"
For those of you interested in this concept, AJ has provided this list of example "meta-browsing" sites:
- Yodlee.com - Aggregator of your financial web sites.
- QuickBrowse.com($) - Emails web pages to you.
- DailyRoutine.com - Browse a list of web pages."
Well.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Observation (Score:2)
Re:Observation (Score:1)
Re:Observation (Score:1)
DailyRoutine [dailyroutine.com] and Quickbrowse [quickbrowse.com] are tools that don't rely on site cooperation. They just let you connect your favorite sites, not the ones they want you to use. If you are talking about Yodlee [yodlee.com] then yes. If your institution isn't on their list, then your SOL.
What's the use? (Score:2)
Why does anyone need this? Even my grandmother, who is not very good with computers, can remember the sites that she likes to check every day. She can click the little "Bookmarks" menu, or even *gasp* type in a URL. So, if even the simplest computer user can get through their daily web routine without a "metabrowser", what's the point?
I'll agree that for most users at home, this doesn't seem to make much sense at first. But, there are a couple of cases in which this could be helpful.
The devil is in the details, though. Just how well does such a service work? They need to make a good first impression. Don't keep showing me stuff I'm not interested in, but also don't keep missing out on things I AM interested in! If there were a simple way to do it with technology, then there'd be no need for the editors on /. to sift through article submissions.
It could be argued that I should just get a lap top or a PDA with a wireless connection. Yes, that would be nice, but that's not a viable option for me at the moment, economically. Maybe in a few years when the upfront and ongoing costs of a wireless PDA has come down some more. My ISP provides unlimited dial-up access for my home PC at $20 per month. We're nowhere near that for mobile access and it's just out of most people's price range.
So, though I see some value to the concept, I don't see much of a market for it, now. But, over time as the costs go down and the capabilities improve, I can see this becoming increasingly useful.
Re:What's the use? (Score:2)
Not necessary... (Score:2)
And, yes... I find this feature useful, but it seems like the MetaBrowser sites are not worth it. Oh, I run scripts that pull information from sites to update a personal page, but this is because I like to view all of my content on the same page.
So, I have to wonder, when did this ever seem like a good idea to someone??? If I'm in front of my terminal, I can certainly click on a bookmark... And, most likely that link (that I use so often) will be on my Personal Toolbar or Sidebar.
I think this will just go down in the history of "bad ideas"...why should I trust a corporation to tell me what I'm interested in???
Re:Not necessary... (Score:2)
but the thing is, you're right. if i'm at my computer, why wouldnt i just go to the original source - which will give much more space to dedicated topics - to get the original scoop?
the answer to the actual story's question here , then, is: yes, it's a nice idea. but not on this media. try reading the newspaper or watch the news if that's what you're after.
Re:Not necessary... (Score:1)
Yodlee [yodlee.com] trys to solve the problem, unlike Onepage, by only providing partnered web sites. It puts all (scraped) line item'ed info onto one HTML page. But the business of providing your account numbers and passwords is annoying and scarey.
DailyRoutine [dailyroutine.com] trys to solve the problem by working like a familiar bookmark manager with special folders. It shows your favorite pages in their full glory (in frame(s) or new window). But most people won't even set the time on their VCRs, so pursuing ease of use may be a red herring.
Quickbrose [quickbrowse.com] trys to solve the problem by emailing the pages to you so you don't even have to go browse the web at all. Stitches together slightly modified versions of entire web pages. With email accounts filling up with SPAM daily, many people don't want the extra stuff in their inbox.
Personally, I use DailyRoutine [dailyroutine.com] which doesn't send me emails and doesn't ask for my user ids or passwords. I'd use bookmarks exclusively except that I jump between NS and IE and between about 8 computers throughout the month. It's nice having one setup that follows me, and happens to let me browse my daily sites like a slide show.
Mozilla Grouped Bookmarks (Score:2, Informative)
I use it to browse slashdot, the register, macsurfer, etc., for my morning tech news, without having to go to each sit individually.
Re:Mozilla Grouped Bookmarks (Score:2)
Ironic, I use /. for this (Score:4, Interesting)
Even the front page hits sites that I occasionally look at. Ny Times, New Scientist, Salon, and a few others. If I played "six degrees of slashdot", most of my favorite sites would only be one or two degrees away from here. Granted, slashdot is a link whore. However I still spend most of my 'non task oriented' browsing on this side of the web.
Just had a thought. Maybe these web aggregators/metabrowsers are missing the boat. I come to slashdot for the content, not the boxes. If I didn't check slashdot daily for the content I wouldn't even look at them. A business model based on screen scraping the web makes me feel like it's 1999 again. You can hardly make money serving up your own content, what makes you think you'll make the bucks with secondhand RDF feeds?
right idea, wrong media. (Score:3, Interesting)
but the net doesnt work like that.
Patent Pending? (Score:1)
"© 1999-2002 DailyRoutine.com, Inc.(TM); Patent Pending"
I wonder what element of this they feel comfortable patenting...?
Pendings all 'round (Score:1)
"Copyright © 1998-2002 Quickbrowse.com Inc. All Rights Reserved. Patent Pending."
Everyone seems to be pursuing something. Quickbrowse and Dailyroutine have been patent pending for years.
Dailyroutine.com has made my life so much easier (Score:1)
I've got certain web pages I like to read every morning (ESPN's NHL section, the Ottawa Sun's sport section, Dilbert, Userfriendly.org, etc.) so to be able to have a single routine that just goes and grabs them all & sticks them into one easy to read web page is great.
When I was on dial up I started it before I got into the shower every morning and it was ready by the time I got out of the shower.
Now I start it at work before I go get my morning coffee and by the time I get back it's done.
I was skeptical that I'd use Dailyroutine.com when I first heard about it. Now I can't imagine my morning web surfing without it.
Trust me - try it for a few weeks and you'll get addicted.
Use Opera's "Save window setup..." (Score:2, Informative)
Mozilla has something similar (Score:1)
Another possibility is to place all your favorite websites in one bookmark folder, and then, just right-click and "Open this folder in tabs".
If you're not running GNOME, you can do nearly the same thing with recent Mozilla. Open several pages, then tell Mozilla to "Bookmark This Group of Tabs..." giving you a nice little button on your Personal Toolbar.
Re:Yodlee info (Score:1)
The aggregation they provide is anything they can line item. So news, weather, etc... are all boring even thought he sites they get it from (like ESPN) have put so much time into "building the experience" of browsing their own sites... reducing it to a few text lines is an injustice.
Re:Yodlee info (Score:1)
Each of these partners sites do not in any way have access to confidential information. Sites like Yodlee host everything themselves. The reason the other organizations pay Yodlee money is that the service of aggregating all of your financial data in one place is a service that these institutions cannot do alone. If you're a bank, the only service you can offer is your own banking services. However, when you partner with a service like Yodlee, your website gets many advantages and services that it otherwise would not have.
How often do you go to your bank account online? Banks (and other places like Yahoo, etc.) are only trying to increase the traffic to their own company's sites and services, in the hope that while you're there, you'll get a new mortgage or be a couple of eyeballs for some advertising.
Author DailyRoutine.com (Score:1)
I built DailyRoutine back in 1999 after seeing the stats in the back of Business 2.0 that the average Internet user browses about 30 pages (5 unique sites) 5 times a week. I noticed my own browsing habits were similar (but magnified :-), and built a tool to help out.
Since then I've rewritten it a few times and added interesting features.
Hope you enjoy it,
-AAron
News != Metabrowsing (Score:1)
"Scraped news sites" don't satisfy my frequent browsing routine. Besides 3 global news sites I also view local news/weather, Yahoo Mail, 3 forums, trillian.cc, SecuriTeam.com, colo site stats, comics, etc...
If your web browsing habits are not limited to the news available on popular portals, you should try something like QuickBrowse or DailyRoutine. Those sites let you add Slashdot, eBay, Hotmail, ESPN, Weather.com, ... everything you want.
Saying that a news site is the only metabrowser you need is like saying "Oh I couldn't use a butler because I already read the newspaper every day." A butler could bring you the paper, make your coffee, drive you to the bank, walk the dog, screen your mail...