Internet Changes Everything

Program Lets Users Share Slices of Web

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By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK - Trolling the Internet (news - web sites) often yields cool tidbits, but they aren't easy to share. If you're planning a trip with friends, for example, and find six good hotel deals, you're probably just going to e-mail them six separate links to check out.

But what if you could send them a single Web page that had pictures and price lists for all six hotels, arranged neatly in boxes, captioned by your personal, witty commentary?

A free Web service being launched Monday by a startup called Amplify LLC lets you do precisely that. Amplify users can create their own pages, called "amps," filled entirely with content of their choosing — pictures, text, audio or video clips — and links back to the source material.

The result combines the look-what-I-found quality of Web logs with the free-form creativity of collage.

The goal is to help users overcome information overload by letting them experience the Internet as they shape it, "not just the way the Web is set up for them," said Eric Goldstein, the head of New York-based Amplify.

Users can share their amps with anyone else, even non-users, simply by sending them a link to it. The company also hopes strangers will share their amps on the Amplify Web site, turning it into a hub for collages of material on topics ranging from news to games.

The ability to share bits of content in a centralized setting will be familiar to people who have used collaborative work software programs such as Groove Networks or Lotus Notes.

But privately funded Amplify believes its service will stand out for being free and easy to use with the help of a browser toolbar. Amplify expects to derive revenue solely from advertising.

June 27, 2004 at 07:17 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink | TrackBack (17) | Top of page | Blog Home