Comments on: AvantGo to Greatly Restrict Custom Channels
Beginning in just a couple of days, AvantGo will limit the number of subscribers to custom channels to just eight people for each channel. Custom channels are created by users as links to small sites that don't have a formal contract with AvantGo. Regular channels, like the ones listed on AvantGo's site, won't be affected. On February 20, all AvantGo users will be unsubscribed from all their custom channels. The first eight people to resign up for each custom channel will be allowed to do so. All others will be blocked.
Article Comments
(95 comments)
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.
Comments Closed
This article is no longer accepting new comments.
RE: Time to Jump Ship
RE: Time to Jump Ship
...the real bummer is that not only do I have no idea as to which of my channels are going to be nixed and which aren't, I don't know what time they're doing the deed on Wednesday and so I won't be able to save them.
*sigh* Plucker is such a pain, but it is the only automated solution left to me.
RE: Time to Jump Ship
AvantGo has been around for years. I understand quite well why they can't afford to give you and thousands of other people free service. Would you like to provide a bunch of servers to proxy content and Internet bandwidth to sevrvice thousands of people for free? In fact I'm sure AvantGo would be glad to just let you pick up those costs for them, and save you the effort of getting those systems and services set up.
RE: Time to Jump Ship
I run an avantgo channel. I have a contract with them, but I am not paying 1 dollar per subscriber. That's insane. I guess they will be doomed. It's funny because they certainly will be facing the challenege of high bandwidth always-on portable devices that can pull down and render full sized webpages.
Cut out the middleman. I guess they have to make cash back for the investors now before it's too late.
[http://www.mediathreat.net]
What they SHOULD do...
While my PUG doesn't get a ton of traffic, I'm sure there are more than 8 subscribers to our little channel, and I'm not about to pay AvantGo a bank just to keep it going.
RE: What they SHOULD do...
They did. It was called Avantgo 1.0. I think they flat out skipped version 2.0 and moved 3.0 to their current incarnation where they host your channel setup. I'd still be using 1.0 if it supported color and more than 1 bit graphics.
Time to try an alternative.
RE: Dibs
Prices...
Go here:
http://avantgo.com/products/businesses/marketing_commerce/custom_channel.html
and click on "affordably priced".
Pretty steep for smaller numbers of users (above 8). Clearly they are looking to only provide enterprise services, with that pricing.
RE: Prices...
With these changes, I would expect about 20%-30% of all of the channels on AvantGo to disappear within the first month after this takes place. Obviously all of the Custom Channels are all gone on Feb. 20th, but these prices are going to force many smaller channels out pretty quick as well. Too bad for the little guys!
RE: Prices...
Add a special subscription price for Avantgo users of your site, and I don't think that many users will complain about paying $10 a year to get AvantGo if the content is worth it.
It looks like a fair deal to me.
RE: Prices...
Try Plucker, you can get to the same sites, and their browser is much, much better!
Swirling.... swirling..... whoosh!
Don't look now, but that little speck is what's left of the company going down the toilet...
Personally, I've seen this coming, ever since they started the shift towards enterprise markets. It's been my impression that they've not really *wanted* personal users any more.
Oh well, yet another reason why plucker and/or iSilo is a better solution for most of us "normal joes"
RE: Swirling.... swirling..... whoosh!
> *wanted* personal users any more.
They don't want to pay to give you free content anymore. What is so hard to understand about that?
RE: Swirling.... swirling..... whoosh!
Now that the end users have proven their case, they don't need to absorb the cost of providing a free deliver service to everyone who wants it.
If you like the service they provide, then you are goint to have to pay for it. If you don't need the control of custom channels you can use some of the other widley available, advertising driven channels.
The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
Dear Mobile Enthusiast,
Mazingo Network (www.mazingo.net) would like to extend you an invitation
to submit your mobile web site to Mazingo's mobile delivery service for
the Pocket PC. Unlike Avantgo, publishing on the Mazingo Network is free,
and submitting a channel couldn't be easier. Plus, we're doing some
revolutionary new stuff.
Mazingo is best described as AvantGo on steroids. Text-only sites work
great, but customers can also receive rich media content, including movies,
TV shows, radio programs and photographs. Several major publishers are
already participating including RCA Records, ABC News, USA Today and
others to be announced.
Moreover, we want to put money in your pocket, rather than charging you
outrageous prices to use our network. Mobilizing your web site is free,
and we have a few different ways for you to turn your site into a profit
center.
But first, you need to submit your site. If you already have an AvantGo
channel, it will work perfectly with Mazingo. Just take 2 minutes to fill
in the form here:
http://www.mazingo.net/pc/publishing.htm
Mazingo Network is turning the Pocket PC into a killer mobile
entertainment and information device, and we want to you to participate in
this truly revolutionary technology. Come submit your PDA-friendly web
site to our directory today, and we'll tell you how to start making money
from your submission.
Sincerely,
Carmine Gallo
VP Channel Development
Mazingo Network, Inc
415.346.7100 (ext.101)
http://www.mazingo.net
carmine@mazingo.net
RE: The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
RE: The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
RE: The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
Mazingo currently does NOT support the following devices:
Casio BE-300
HP 720, 660, 620 LX
Other H/PC devices
Palm OS devices, including the Handspring and Sony Clie.
Philips Nino
RE: The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
RE: The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
RE: The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
RE: The heck with AvantGo...here's an Alternative
Useful
Geat Idea, Poor Business Plan
By the way, add Pendragon Software's Browser to an alternative to them:
http://www.pendragonsoftware.com/browser/index.html
Maybe one of these companies can take up where they left off. That is if Avantgo lets them. They have patented their technology of syncing to PDAs. If they are in a financial lurch and hoping to squeeze everyone else out with stupid licensing policies I will be the first to choke Avantgo off and encourage everyone else to do the same.
RE: Geat Idea, Poor Business Plan
Why the heck should Avantgo give you free service? The purpose of the company is to make money--not provide social welfare to people like you.
The whole purpose of the "free" service was proof-of-concept. If you want the service in the future, then pay for it.
Obviously, you like the service. Now, pony up the cash if you find it indispensable as you state. Put your money where yer mouth is.
RE: Geat Idea, Poor Business Plan
The point is that AvantGo did what it did really well and could have found all sorts of better ways to make money off the service. Why not, for example, allow users to gain free access to two or three channels, but charging a monthly or yearly subscription for additional channels? That way, they could allow custom content providers to advertise to their hearts' content while providing incentive to maintain high-quality content.
I think you're way off base.
RE: Geat Idea, Poor Business Plan
I, for one, would be willing to pay $5 a month to view public interest content (i.e. news, hobby pages, etc).
If my company chooses to provide a channel for the sale of their product or for service to their customers, then they have a reason to pay the subscription fees.
RE: Geat Idea, Poor Business Plan
RE: Geat Idea, Poor Business Plan
Either Avantgo re-look at their fees charged to publications and make it more affordable or as one reader suggested limit the free channels and introduce a premium account surcharge. Alternatively, sell Avantgo as a software with things that we REALLY like to see such as clipping.
On the other hand, HandStory seems like an interesting alternative.
Lovely, just lovely.
Time to make MobileKeen, a webcomic PalmOS client.
yeah...
I am one of those foreigners using an AvantGo channel not only daily, but hourly to keep updated on the latest news offered by two Belgian newspapers. I insisted personnally with one of these two to start offering content through AvantGo, content which would otherwise have remained out of reach for me as a Belgian, and they kindly followed my suggestion.
All this is going to disappear. Only the "big ones" will survive: CNN, USAToday, not the (much more interesting !) smaller national newspapers.
Sigh.
RE: yeah...
Let's say it again:
Avantgo is not a provider of social welfare to people like you. They're in the business of making money. Understand?
If you like the service, then pay for it. Say again: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAAFL).
And again... TANSTAAFL.
RE: yeah...
(there is only a free lunch for US citizens)
RE: yeah...
RE: yeah...
Pocket PC users are a small percentage here, you may gather more business at a relevant site.
RE: yeah...
My only beef with MobiPocket Reader is that it obviously comes from the PocketPC world: it has a too graphical interface, and therefore I find it too slow for e-book reading on my 16MHz Palm IIIxe (compared to iSilo and PalmReader). So I went back to using iSilo, until I upgrade to a newer Palm, that is.
As for AvantGo, I haven't used it in quite a while: it uses way too much memory, and I didn't find it very stable. It was a great idea, but I would have liked it more memory-efficient, more stable, and I would have liked the ability to cut & paste text.
See Ya!
RE: See Ya!
The scary thing
RE: The scary thing
RE: The scary thing
So long...again
Avantgo was getting too big in filesize and took too long at every hotsync. Too bad the custom setup never worked. Once a day became every hotsync. Good luck lasting till year end.
This does not really change much of anything...
It sounds fair... You can get free content from your own personal website, but if you want Avantgo to make it available to hundreds of people, you pay for it. Sounds a lot like "The American Way" to me!
Remember, all of you something-for-nothing Internet generation people. Having a weak business model is what caused the Internet bubble to burst. Companies must make money to survive.
Doug
RE: This does not really change much of anything...
RE: This does not really change much of anything...
While it is the american way, Avantgo wants companies to use their product. That is where they make their money. Yahoo and Google also want companies to use their search engines. Yahoo and Google understand that they can't charge normal internet users.
We wanted to purchase Avantgo for our Company. We have 300,000 plus employess and had approx. 15,000 that would have needed the service. At the time 2 years ago, Avantgo wanted almost $400 per user. That was at least $150 more than the palm cost. We dropped that idea very fast.
I agree with everyone else, Avantgo's high prices and this latest move will have them in trouble.
I also never liked how avantgo would hide the real web address. Why would any company want to create a mobile version of their site and only allow one browser to use it.
RE: This does not really change much of anything...
> company want to create a mobile version of their site and only allow one browser
> to use it."
Because AvantGo *INSISTS*, that's why the companies do it.
This is the primary reason why I have boycotted them. That would be like Sony
saying you can't sell other gaming systems if you sell their Playstation...
Oh yeah, they do (did?) that too.
Faugh! It would be trivial to use iSilo or Plucker to grab news & etc. sites, except
they're so "rich" with extraneous links in header and sidebars that you need to be
a programmer to strip them into a reasonable format for a PDA.
NOTE to news services and others wanting to target small-screen users:
Provide pages of low-link, small-graphic, high content (as opposed to high-glitz)
text, and yes, put a few text-based adds in it. Make it known here and in places
like news comp.sys.palmtops.pilot and watch us grab it. I know you have to
make a buck, and would gladly scan a paragraph or 2 of adds to get quality.
Cut out the middle-man. Contact iSilo and Plucker and ask them for help.
Let people use their own conduits/compressors/gatherers.
Contract with avantgo
Does that means AvantGo is making money off Palm Infocenter? Whoooa, I don't think Palm Infocenter (like most channel providers, it's more of a service than business) is making much money off it's mobile content, and with the economic downturn we are in, free mobile content is most often in the line of fire of most budget concious CFOs.
RE: Contract with avantgo
RE: Contract with avantgo
not worth it!
How are AvantGo users worth a penny to the custom channel publishers?! If anything, AvantGo should be paying the publishers for providing content for the AvantGo network! Knowing that content from ABC, ESPN, NY Times, Wall St. Journal (and PIC!) is available is what drives customers to AvantGo in the first place.
Who does all the work for creating the AvantGo channel in the first place? The publisher, that's who. They have to develop a custom solution for that the AvantGo browser can handle.
I've worked with several publishers that have created custom AvantGo channels and most of them were highly unsatisfied with the (lack of) service that they received from AvantGo. Need to change the link depth of your channel? Wait 30 days. Need to fetch off site content? Wait 30 days. Need an audit of the traffic on your site? We'll get back to you. Oh, by the way, here's your bill for this month. We expect it to be paid on-time, in full.
My favorite "gotcha" is that if you code to the guidelines set forth by the AvantGo publisher guide and allow them to cache your content, you will have no way to "audit" AvantGo to determine how much traffic your site actually gets. Case in point, we convinced a client to disable the AvantGo servers from caching their content. Once that change went into effect (30 days later!!) we installed a script that tracked active unique AvantGo users on their site for a month. The results were an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE lower than the number of users they were being charged for by AvantGo. To say they were miffed would be an understatement...
Finally, to the AvantGo "advocate" that's bashing everyone in this thread - have enough courage in your opinion to *not* post anonymously and quit pasting the same "no free lunch" FUD in each response.
RE: not worth it!
FWIW, *NOT* a big Avantgo Fan here. I used to use/like it, but as many times in a day as I do a HotSync, it got tedious switching Avantgo off and on...
iSilo is a good alternative, but unfortunately you have to know the URL for the content (something that in the early days Avantgo used to display, but that's been quite a while ago).
What we need is a good spot/site that lists Palm OS-friendly web site URLs.... Anyone? (Btw, www.palminfocenter.com/palm/ works pretty good for this site)
RE: not worth it!
...that, or Avantgo will just charge the end users like normal business people.
RE: not worth it!
I have always preferred iSilo to AvantGo, and now I'm glad that I made that choice a long time ago.
At least AvantGo opened everyone's eyes to the need for web contented formatted for handheld devices.
RE: not worth it!
RE: not worth it!
RE: not worth it!
Wireless Syncing
a wireless connection (via my phone with inbuild modem). As far as I know plucker cannot do this. Are there any alternatives in that arena?
RE: Wireless Syncing
RE: Wireless Syncing
RE: Wireless Syncing
RE: Wireless Syncing
Start charging end-users, or stop caring about the hobbyists
Unless AvantGo introduce a subscription model they're heading down the drain pretty darn soon. Unless of course they come clean about not caring for the hobbyist content providers and shift their focus 100% towards the enterprise market.
As a normal joe I'd prefer the corporate confession. Sure, I may not agree with it - but at least it's honest.
RE: Start charging end-users, or stop caring about the hobbyists
Why don't they offer that option? Obviously dealing with small customers is a pain but if you automate the system and charge for tech support or something, you at least won't loose money working with them.
But just 100% dumping all custom channels (which is pretty much what they are doing) just makes their service unusable. The two channels I rely on are custom, the rest are just something to read in waiting rooms.
RE: Start charging end-users, or stop caring about the hobbyists
Grammar
RE: Grammar
There goes myhandemail!!!
RE: There goes myhandemail!!!
You need four things:
1. POP e-mail account
2. Clip-on modem
3. Handmail or similar e-mail client
4. Dial-up access to the internet
Create your own damn channel...
Can't we just create our own custom channels? It seems to me that the policy says that you can't havea bucketload of people subscribed to ONE channel, but what if we all just copy the locations down and create our own autochannels of the sites? Wouldn't that work?
RE: Create your own damn channel...
Alternative - Older Stand Alone Version of AvantGo
Geesh, has it really been that long?... Back in 1998, when AvantGo first came out, they had a standalone, desktop client. I've liked it so much I kept it and never upgraded to the newer versions.
Since you run everything on your desktop, you can synchronize whatever web sites you define, and there are no size limits either (other than your palm's).
I still have a copy of the installation files - you can leave a message if you can't find it on the web. The AvantGo version is 1.1, and the file is Avantgos.exe, file size 2,080,275 bytes.
Michael.
RE: Alternative - Older Stand Alone Version of AvantGo
Where can I find a copy?
Thanks.
RE: Alternative - Older Stand Alone Version of AvantGo
Thanks again.
RE: Alternative - Older Stand Alone Version of AvantGo
My custom channels still work!?
I doubt that PDABUZZ mobile only has 8 subscribers, so what's the deal?
RE: My custom channels still work!?
I don't think Avantgo made the announcement public enough. Heck, they didn't even make the announcement on the Avantgo page that syncs on the PDA's...
I think they'd piss too many people off if they actually went through with it.
RE: My custom channels still work!?
I would pay for the Avantgo service
Richard - in the UK
AvantGo Workaround
(thanks to Mike Rohde):
AvantGo Workaround Solutions
There is a workaround you can use to contunue receiving custom channels on AvantGo. You can also check out alternate applications which essentially do the same thing as AvantGo, but on your own PC.
AvantGo Custom Channel Workaround
To contunue receiving custom channels on AvantGo requires the ability to create a simple personal web page and web space in which to store your personal web page.
Step 1: Create a basic HTML web page and add web link(s) to your favorite non-official AvantGo channel(s) on the page. The Palm Tipsheet Mobile site is located here:
http://www.palmtipsheet.com/mobile/
Here are the Palm Tipsheet Mobile's specs (use these for your new AvantGo custom channel):
Maximum Channel Size: 60k
Link Depth: 2
Include Images: Yes
Follow Off-Site Links: No
In some cases you can easily add links to personal web pages with tools like Apple's iTools, Yahoo! GeoCities, Lycos Tripod, WebSpawner, etc.
Step 2: Save this HTML file to your personal web space (this process will be automated if you're using one of the free web space service listed above). Select and copy the actual internet URL link for your personal page from your browser's address field.
Step 3: Login to AvantGo and create a new 'Custom Channel' in your account. Paste your URL link for this newly created personal page as your custom channel source's link location. Be sure to add the correct amount of levels for the channel to grab.
Step 4: Save this channel and log out of AvantGo.
Step 5: Sync your Palm handheld (and AvantGo) to add this new personal page as a custom channel to your handheld. Enjoy! :-)
Alternate AvantGo Replacement Apps
If you would like to investigate alternate means of getting the Palm Tipsheet Mobile Edition on your Palm handheld, have a look at these applications. All of these software suites process mobile websites on your own PC, rather than through an online webserver (like AvantGo):
iSilo (PC, Mac, Linux - Sharware):
http://www.isilo.com/
Handstory (PC - Shareware):
http://www.handstory.org/
Plucker (PC - Freeware):
http://www.plkr.org/
MobiPocket (PC, Mac - Freeware):
http://www.mobipocket.com/
Sitescooper (PC, Mac, Linux - Freeware):
http://www.sitescooper.org/
RE: AvantGo Workaround (Won't Work)
When I am another AvantGo user tried the workaround I mentioned on my site, it loaded the personal page, but would not allow us to view the secondary link to the Palm Tipsheet Mobile site. Just thought I ought to mention this before anyone goes to the trouble of trying the workaround idea.
I would suggest one of the alternate software apps listed for viewing pages offline, since you control these apps completely on your own desktop.
-- Mike Rohde, Editor
The Palm Tipsheet
RE: AvantGo Workaround
I've got a cron job on my linux box that runs the following command:
lynx -dump www.whatever.com >whatever.html
And then I point avantgo at my website at whatever.html
I'm sure there's probably much easier ways to view web pages on your palm, but I'm used to Avantgo, and haven't had the chance to try the other software.
Oh well, I don't think many people will read this post anyways, once an article is off the front page.
---
If you sing in french while hopping on one foot, the evil birds won't come out of your bathroom mirror.
8 Might as Well Be None
Latest Comments
- I got one -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Don't we have this already? -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -richf
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -dmitrygr
- Palm phone on HDblog -palmato
- Palm PVG100 -hgoldner
- RE: Like Deja Vu -PacManFoo
- Like Deja Vu -T_W
Time to Jump Ship
Well, I guess it's time I finally learned how to use Plucker:
http://www.plkr.org/index.pl/download
...first coola, now this.