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Metabrowse Your Web Routine?

Posted by Cliff on from the another-fancy-name-for-"portal" dept.

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:

11 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Well.. by RaboKrabekian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Having not heard about metabrowsing in two years is probably a good indication that the trend hasn't swept the internet community by storm.

    --
    "Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
  2. Observation by funkhauser · · 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?

    --
    Learn to Play Go
  3. Not necessary... by OneFix · · Score: 2

    With things like the "Bookmark This Group of Tabs" option in Mozilla, this is not necessary.

    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???

    1. Re:Not necessary... by skotte · · Score: 2

      actually, i would say this is a "good idea which would never really work right". sure, i could have a bunch of bookmarks (which i do). and i could have a set of pages i go to everyday (which i do). and my browser could open up to one of those fFor me right away (which it does). but the idea is fFor all my other browsing of the day to be nsted right into that fFirst startup page. a single page which gives daily headlines, stocks, sports, tech news, a basic quick up-to-date run down on everything really new in the world. nice idea, really. and most ISPs have a homepage which attempts to do this sort of idea. heck, this is really all CNN is.

      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.

  4. Mozilla Grouped Bookmarks by Paul+Burney · · Score: 2, Informative

    I suppose it isn't exactly metabrowsing, but in mozilla 1.0 you can file a group of tabs as one bookmark. Just choose "File Bookmark" from the "Bookmarks" menu, and click the "File as Group" checkbox.

    I use it to browse slashdot, the register, macsurfer, etc., for my morning tech news, without having to go to each sit individually.

    --
    <?php while ($self != "asleep") { $sheep_count++; } ?>
    1. Re:Mozilla Grouped Bookmarks by kraf · · Score: 2

      Of course in the much more advanced Opera, you can automatically save the windows settings and you just continue where you left off when starting the browser again.

  5. Ironic, I use /. for this by Bald+Wookie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    See those slashboxes over there? I've got K5, Ars Forums, Brunching Shuttlecocks, E2 and O'Reilly. These are sites that I browse when I've got some free time and something intersting comes up. I know the url's, but I don't have them bookmarked because I get them here on slashdot.

    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?

  6. right idea, wrong media. by skotte · · Score: 3, Interesting

    this is essentially how the newspapers do it, you know. you have several companys (reuters, associated press, knight ridder, etc) each has a lot of people on staff to write a lot of things. then they sell the stories to newspapers all over the world. that paper you have in your hand is, if you will, a metabrowser.

    but the net doesnt work like that.

  7. What's the use? by martyb · · 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.

    • Better Signal/Noise Ratio There's ever more data available to us. How do I find the stuff I want among all the stuff there is? Sure, there's google for looking up archived data. But, what I'd like is something that would scan the web and present only current news in my areas of interest. As elsewhere posted in this thread, to a large extent I've found that /. accomplishes this for me with respect to science and technology. I've not found something comparable for other areas in which I'm interested, especially in my town and surrounding area. Sure, there's the local newspaper, but there's that S/N ratio again! There's value in having a single site which does the sifting for me and presents only the news in which I'm interested.

      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.


    • Accessibility It's one thing to bring up my browser's bookmarks at home. But what if I am away from home? When I go to my local public library or an internet cafe, they don't have my bookmarks available. Sure, I could just create my own homepage which contains my favorite bookmarks, but I know how to write HTML; and I'd wager the majority of people who browse the web do not.

      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.


    • Business executives. They have the financial means and the need for information. But, at the moment, they've got secretaries and underlings who do the sifting for them already. Add on the resistance to change from what "works" and it will take a while for it to catch on.

    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.

    1. Re:What's the use? by costas · · Score: 2

      The site I run (here) tries to do exactly this for meta-browsing. Give it a shot.

  8. Use Opera's "Save window setup..." by OnTheEdge · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have 4 sites I visit each day. Initially, I opened each in its own Opera window, ordered them as I wished, and saved the set up. Now I just open Opera each morning, and it loads all the sites in the order I wish to view them. As I finish viewing a site, I close its window. Once I see a blank screen, it's time to return to real life.