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Web Access on Handhelds

Posted by michael on from the slasheverywhere dept.

An anonymous reader sent in: "According to The Register, AvantGo is shutting down unregistered (unpaid) "custom channels" with more than eight subscribers. Until now, AvantGo has been free (as in beer). What alternatives are there for Web sites that wish to distribute free information to PalmOS devices? Blazer and Eudora Internet Suite require wireless connections; Plucker is open-source and almost does the trick but doesn't automatically synchronize and the installation is way too complicated for the average user. Is there an alternative to paying AvantGo thousands of dollars? All I want to do is give away information, not charge for it."

2 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Consumers should pay, not content producers by beamz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In the state of the internet with advertising revenue down substantially, where are many of the sites that are struggling to survive themselves going to come up with these funds?

    I work at a newspaper and we've just recently scrapped the whole Avantgo feed idea because they want to charge content producers to deliver their feed.

    Everyone knows that nothing is free and someone should pay for this, it should hardly be Avantgo but it's too much with too little work.

    IMO a successful model would be for Avantgo to do some of the legwork and go out there and promote themselves instead of relying on all the content producers to fill the trough. It's a double burden because first you have to pay for a service and then you have to find some way to get substantial traffic numbers there so perhaps ads can pay for it.

    I think Avantgo even though they do a lot of corporate business is going to lose a lot of the people who thought it was a cool service. Avantgo should be charging the people who download and give a percentage to the content producer. It's a win win situation that way. This is the way the internet is moving, why not try to embrance and not abandon?

  2. Free services going pay by AndyChrist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Has there been a single one yet which hasn't created an enormous gulf between the lowest price point and free which just doesn't seem worth crossing?

    I mean, 9 users, and it's 1000 bucks a year? I thought the article said they were worried about BIG businesses using them.

    Every time a free service starts charging, it seems, they charge way too much for way too little, often while still leaving the free services there, which sometimes are good enough anyway. (Yahoo mail, for example)

    Is there an example of a service which charges small increments in price for small increments in service?