Web Routines

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

Web Routines organize a user's web browsing habits to provide convenience and efficiency for frequent browsing. RSS readers are a way to browse special web site feeds in a list format (like email), while Web Routines guide the user through a live browsing session to ANY web site, providing each one in its full and intended glory.

A web browser with bookmarks works well when searching for answers, entertainment and shopping. But when you visit a list of specific pages frequently (a routine), you are stuck digging around a potentially huge list of bookmarks, in an attempt to find the next one, then the next one, ... Web Routines solve the problem, and provide additional enhancements, like preloading web pages before you get to them, and allowing tangential browsing without losing track of the next page in your intended sequence.

This is the growing index of the postings I've made on Web Routines.

Index

• The Beginning
• Browse with Purpose
• Elegant and Powerful
• InfoPorn 2000
• In the Wild
• Fair Use License
  

Web Routines - Fair Use License

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

Patent number: 6993531
Filing date: Feb, 1999 (Provisional)
Filing date: May, 1999 (Utility)
Issue date: Jan 31, 2006

I, AAron nAAs, am the sole named inventor of U.S. Patent Number 6,993,531 (the “’531 Patent”), which is directed to the Web Routines technology I developed and describe on this site.  Licensing inquiries and/or questions regarding the ‘531 Patent should be directed to Empire IP LLC at the following email address:  info@empireipllc.com

[ Return to index (Web Routines) ]

Web Routines - InfoPorn 2000

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

Back in 2000 and before, there was evidence that users sit down and “routinely” browse their favorite web sites. See the table.

Consider that these numbers suggest that average users browse about once per day to 5 web sites. They view about 7 sub-pages at each site (36 pageviews) - their whole session (routine) lasting 30 minutes.

Consider yourself falling into this pattern just by browsing for news (two sites), then weather, then stocks, then email. With the extreme advances in web technologies, businesses flooding the web with services, and the ever increasing numbers of households with broadband, you probably do a lot more!

These “Routine” habits already exist. I've been touting that “Web Routines” are an opportunity to capture user loyalty and understand user interests.

[ Return to index (Web Routines) ]

Mood/Rage not eco friendly? More costly?

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

It would be interesting for someone to do a study on the effects of road rage on the environment and driving expenses. I'm not even considering the increased risk of accidents, which is an obvious issue.

Consider that someone in a bad mood (or generally rage-inclined) drives from here to there, they probably race their engine, break hard at stoplights, and quickly accelerate off of a stop and to drive around other cars. Anytime you consider how much energy is used for something, consider that the energy consumed is dependant on the path chosen. If your car was at the top of a hill, and you coasted down in neutral (or off), you would use much less energy than if you raced down the hill with your foot on the accelerator, then braked hard at the bottom. The more energy you use, the more gasoline consumed and the more pollution expelled.

If someone in a bad mood gets into their car and drives to/from work, they are more likely to use more gasoline and create more pollution than someone in a good mood. I wonder how much difference there is across a years time.

Maybe road-raged drivers should be required to buy carbon offsets for the extra pollution they are adding to the environment?

Web Routines - Elegant and Powerful

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

Originating in 1998, Web Routines are one of the first implementations of “tabbed” type browsing, but further addressed user browsing habits rather than just session window organization.

This idea lays the foundation for compelling feature sets and user reliance, while the host gains insight into user interests, allowing automated site suggestions, useful product and service endorsements and other value added services.

[ Return to index (Web Routines) ]

Web Routines - Browse with Purpose

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

Web Routines are about organizing users’ web browsing habits into a natural flow. The resulting system is as sticky and personal as email, and frequently leaves the users feeling satisfied-as if they’ve just browsed the entire Internet.



“It’s like bookmarks on steroids” ... “Sometimes bookmarks and Favorites aren't enough. Sometimes you need a little guidance to keep track of your daily routine on the Web.” - Al Fasoldt (tech columnist/radio/tv)

[ Return to index (Web Routines) ]

Consuming Podcasts (virtually anywhere)

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

I just listened to this week's TWiT (fantastic podcast), where they were talking about Blogs, RSS, iPod, Twitter, Podcatchers, etc... That sent me back a few years with my initial experimentation with consuming podcasts. I didn't get an iPod at first, and had a Samsung YEPP YP-T7Z (1GB) mp3 player, which was nice, but I would soon find that it was rather bland.

It felt like the device needed to both be the bucket to hold the mp3 files, but also the mechanism to receive them. ITunes plays on the concept of your "home base," tying up, and tying you to your home computer to receive and update your iPod. It should be that plugging in your media player into ANY computer should auto start the appropriate software to look for and receive new content, for storage back on the device. When you disconnected, your device would be both power and content charged. This is similar to the Windows-on-a-thumbdrive virtualization concept, utilizing the host computers's (PC or Mac, why not?) cpu and bandwidth.

I tried putting some lightweight podcatchers on the device to varying degrees of success, but didn't get anything solid or compelling enough to believe I had it right. I even provided feedback to some of the authors that the software should be runnable from (and to) the player hardware's filesystem.

It ends up the the iPod was vastly superior for listening to podcasts with it's content switching and resume features. ITunes really isn't that bad since I have to charge the iPod each day or so anyway... now my thoughts have turned to trying to connect the iPod (while at work) back to the home PC via a virtual USB connection and LogMeIn.com (which would probably CRAWL so slowly as to be useless).

I wonder if putting a virtual machine (VMware or VPC) on my iPod to be the ITunes "home base" would work. I would want it to run on any PC box I connected it to, and ITunes would have to recognize the iPod as being "plugged in" when it would in fact, be the unmountable "C:" drive. Too bad ITunes is such a heavyweight program. In this scenario, ITunes would use 2x the diskspace necessary to store music/podcasts for consuming on the run. For example, ITunes would download a TWiT episode onto on the C: drive somewhere to have it available... then detecting the the iPod was connected, it would copy the TWiT episode to the iPod (C: drive remember?)... What a colossal waste of space and effort for what MIGHT work, and certainly would be burden/timewaste and disk corruption risk... but it would be fun to try :-)

Web Routines - The Beginning

Reddit It | Digg This | Add to your: del.icio.us, Google, Yahoo

Navigate through your favorite web sites with a natural flow. Let your web browser help.

I had this compelling idea back in 1998 and began to secretly pursue it. We were in the middle of the Dot-com Bubble and this new web browsing concept that had more potential than most of the products of the day that were getting millions of dollars from VCs and IPOs. I was more interested in product success than a quick sellout. Now, after almost 10 years I’d built a proof of concept, seen its addictiveness, acquired a patent (7 years after the initial filing), and approached Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, etc... about acquiring the technology.

Big companies have very strict (paranoid) rules about receiving unsolicited product ideas, due to concern over law suits, and would prefer to have an idea be public knowledge before give it any consideration. I, on the other hand, felt it was a golden opportunity for an Internet savvy corporation to benefit by offering unique features before their competitors.

Now that the key companies are aware of my pursuit, and they need the concepts to be more visible before further consideration, I am posting the ideas. I’ve committed a lot to this effort across the last 10 years, and before a large company can deny or dictate terms of public use, I will use this opportunity to spell out the terms at which the public may utilize my work without cost or fear of cease-and-desist retribution.

[ Return to index (Web Routines) ]