Snipper -- Freeware Top News Reader

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=15543' target='_blank'>http://www.pocketgear.com/software_...il.asp?id=15543</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Ever wish you could read news from major news sites like cnn.com on a Pocket PC device with the web page formatted specifically for a PDA? Most major news web sites do not offer their content to be easily viewed on mobile devices. The web pages include large graphics, ads, several columns, java script, and many other things. It isn't practical to view such web sites on a Pocket PC. Snipper is the first application available that makes it possible to view 3 of the Internet's most popular news web sites: CNN.com, MSNBC.com and the Jerusalem Post (jpost.com). Snipper retrieves the front page of these news sites without any graphics. It then extracts the various sections and recreates a web page that is optimally viewed on a PDA."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20041026-Snipper.gif" /><br /><br />It only supports those three sites, but it's free. :) You can download a copy from PocketGear.

[ADBrown]

The Jerusalem Post is considered 'news' now? Why not just subscribe to the PNAC Gazette? I'd prefer the Haaretz any day of any week.

Ten points to anyone who understands all of what I just said.

[PR.]

Major news site - http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile

Don't need any fancy programs either. :D

[pivaska]

...and MSN mobile

[powder2000]

I'll bite when I see fox news there.

[freitasm]

This is probably the case of a solution looking for a problem. Most news sites have now a mobile version, and the majority have RSS feeds.

This also brings another problem to the front: most news sites are able to supply free content by actually making money out of advertising. Ad blockers, and filters like this program are actually using bandwidth but depriving these sites of their only revenue - unless we're talking about content purchashing, which I don't think is happening here.

Also, in terms of copyright, is it valid for a produtc to strip the content out of someone else's site, and use it? Note that the program is not claiming ownership of content, but even so, it's modifying the material. :roll:

[Leon]

This also brings another problem to the front: most news sites are able to supply free content by actually making money out of advertising. Ad blockers, and filters like this program are actually using bandwidth but depriving these sites of their only revenue - unless we're talking about content purchashing, which I don't think is happening here.

Also, in terms of copyright, is it valid for a produtc to strip the content out of someone else's site, and use it? Note that the program is not claiming ownership of content, but even so, it's modifying the material. :roll:
Exactly. It rather surprises me to see this program being promoted here on the front page, knowing how Jason thinks about things like this. In any case, the link does not seem to work anymore, so maybe other people think this is illegal as well.

EDIT: No, it seems PocketGear is having problems. Other pages refuse to load as well.
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'

[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Driver's SQLAllocHandle on SQL_HANDLE_DBC failed

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[ADBrown]

This also brings another problem to the front: most news sites are able to supply free content by actually making money out of advertising. Ad blockers, and filters like this program are actually using bandwidth but depriving these sites of their only revenue - unless we're talking about content purchashing, which I don't think is happening here.

Also, in terms of copyright, is it valid for a produtc to strip the content out of someone else's site, and use it? Note that the program is not claiming ownership of content, but even so, it's modifying the material. :roll:
Exactly. It rather surprises me to see this program being promoted here on the front page, knowing how Jason thinks about things like this. In any case, the link does not seem to work anymore, so maybe other people think this is illegal as well.


Are you the same guys who claim that it's illegal to get up and go to the bathroom during a TV commercial? Some people have really creepy ideas about what is and is not 'legal.'

Besides which, it's irrelevant. Despite what corporations would like you to think, the sacred cow of copyright is far from absolute. The core of copyright law here in the U.S. says that in effect, the copyright holder must show demonstrable financial impact--i.e. that they lost money or that the other guy was making money. Neither is the case here.

[freitasm]

Are you the same guys who claim that it's illegal to get up and go to the bathroom during a TV commercial? Some people have really creepy ideas about what is and is not 'legal.'


Nope :? ... Think this way: television channels charge the advertiser regardless if the audience is in front of the TV set or in the bathroom.

Websites only make revenue if a banner is shown or clicked. If a user filters the banner then the only revenue the website can generate is gone. Unlike the television networks, advertisers on the Internet do not pay for ads that are not viewed.

I run a website and I have an idea of how many pages I serve per hour/day/week/month. I know that 45% of my users filter ads/banners. This is 45% of my potential revenue that I'm not realising.

I think this example shows the difference between television and Internet.

Besides which, it's irrelevant. Despite what corporations would like you to think, the sacred cow of copyright is far from absolute. The core of copyright law here in the U.S. says that in effect, the copyright holder must show demonstrable financial impact--i.e. that they lost money or that the other guy was making money. Neither is the case here.

Hmmm... Are you sure these companies are not losing revenue for not having ads showing, but having their bandwidth being used anyway? :roll:

[PR.]

I'll bite when I see fox news there.

Lets hope you are forever disappointed :|

[ADBrown]

Are you the same guys who claim that it's illegal to get up and go to the bathroom during a TV commercial? Some people have really creepy ideas about what is and is not 'legal.'


Nope :? ... Think this way: television channels charge the advertiser regardless if the audience is in front of the TV set or in the bathroom.

Websites only make revenue if a banner is shown or clicked. If a user filters the banner then the only revenue the website can generate is gone. Unlike the television networks, advertisers on the Internet do not pay for ads that are not viewed.

I run a website and I have an idea of how many pages I serve per hour/day/week/month. I know that 45% of my users filter ads/banners. This is 45% of my potential revenue that I'm not realising.

I think this example shows the difference between television and Internet.


Actually, in some ways it is the same situation. If people aren't watching the commercials, TV networks can't charge as much for them. It's the same with banners--fewer people seeing them means less revenue. But that's the price that you pay for the right to sell advertising--the knowledge that some people are going to bypass it, like the 45% of people hitting your site without seeing the banners. Are those people 'stealing' your site? Of course not. It's the simple reality of user choice. Personally, I prefer to live in the world where you're free to choose not to be innundated by ads against your will. People have the choice, and websites and TV networks still have people choosing to see advertisements. And, frankly, you'd likely find it impossible to prove that by not watching ads people are harming you financially. By that logic, people who don't buy whatever product a website is selling could be said to be harming the website financially by reading it and using its bandwith/content without buying the product. As it is, it's life, and the cost of doing business.

[ADBrown]

I'll bite when I see fox news there.

Lets hope you are forever disappointed :|

Cheers to that.

[freitasm]

It's the same with banners--fewer people seeing them means less revenue. But that's the price that you pay for the right to sell advertising--the knowledge that some people are going to bypass it, like the 45% of people hitting your site without seeing the banners. Are those people 'stealing' your site? Of course not. It's the simple reality of user choice. Personally, I prefer to live in the world where you're free to choose not to be innundated by ads against your will. People have the choice, and websites and TV networks still have people choosing to see advertisements.

Well, nowhere I used the word stealing, and I didn't imply this at all. I said that I don't realise my potential revenue. As it implies, and as you put in the post, it's the cost of business.

However, there's the risk of people changing the blocking to 85%, in which case free content will be less available. Though some people will still put content on-line, simply because there are other "rewards", visibility being one such type (for example in the case of articles published by someone looking for a job).

[sheik]

Personally, I prefer to live in the world where you're free to choose not to be innundated by ads against your will.
You have that choice, you can choose not to visit a website that is partially funded by advertising.
For example, if everybody chose to use an AdBlocker on this website (and not subscribe), Jason would almost certainly have to close the site down. He has made this pretty clear on a number of occasions.

And, frankly, you'd likely find it impossible to prove that by not watching ads people are harming you financially.
Assuming you are meaning websites in that statement, I must be misunderstanding you, because it is common knowledge (I hope) that any site with significant traffic incurs bandwidth fees. To put this very simply, if you visit a popular website, you are costing the owners of that site money.
To cover these costs, webmasters who run ads hope that a small fraction of visitors (typically less than 3%) will click their ads. By blocking the ads you are making it impossible to even have the chance of generating revenue in such a way.
Additionally, for ads that generate revenue on a "per view" basis (as opposed to per click) then adblockers are obviously depriving revenue there too.
I apologise if I am stating the bleeding obvious to you here, but from reading your views it is honestly not clear to me that you understand the realities of running a community website.


By that logic, people who don't buy whatever product a website is selling could be said to be harming the website financially by reading it and using its bandwith/content without buying the product. As it is, it's life, and the cost of doing business.

You have a more interesting point here.
I would suggest that product oriented websites cannot be treated exactly as community/news sites though. This site is a good example, as a lot of us visit here every day. I can't speak for anyone else but I don't visit any sites that focus on selling products anywhere near as frequently.
However, if someone found the content of a product oriented site useful, and viewed it through a filter to remove all the product info then that would be the same and I think it would be unethical (Obviously it isn't stealing in the legal sense though).

So, my main point is - if you are visiting a site frequently you will be using significant bandwidth, and therefore cost the owner money. By blocking ads you are removing any potential your visits have to generate revenue for the website.
Morally, I can only see two ways around this for people who insist on blocking ads:
1: subscribe to the site. You can then choose to hide the ads.
2: donate to the site - but you'll have to be sure to donate enough to cover potential earnings through ads due to your visit ;)

...using the affiliate links isn't a valid option in my opinion - I would hope regular visitors to the site would use them anyway.
[...also note that this is only my opinion. Some webmasters may feel that even if you donate money, it still doesn't give you the right to block ads, and they are entitled to that view.]

Please don't take this post too personally by the way. For all I know you don't block ads, could be a subscriber and have donated hundreds of dollars. I'm making my points to make it clear to those people that don't contribute anything that if they block the ads they are not being reasonable.

/\dam

[pivaska]

Fox news...... in the vain of "fair and balanced" and with the knowledge that as long as there is CNN there will always be Fox... when you pull it up on your PDA it does come in a somewhat mobile format. It just would be nice if it had a text only feature and configurable to a specific account. So with that in mind if there are enough of us to suggest the change it probably will happen.

[thanos255]

I'll bite when I see fox news there.

Lets hope you are forever disappointed :|

Cheers to that.


Oh yeah CNN is not biased at all. It is COMPLETELY Fair.....and MSN is totally impartial!!

LOL... When they have Michael Savage and the Drudge Report, then I will be very happy.

[Birdman]

Not to get too political, but anyone who can "complain" about Fox news without making "similar" complaints against CNN is clearly asleep at the switch.
(BTW, I will take Fox over CNN any day any time. - But that's just me. I could also do without Ha'aretz, but that if another forum.)

[Steven Cedrone]

Guys, get back on topic. Drop the Fox vs. CNN debate...

Steve

[mesposito2]

However, there's the risk of people changing the blocking to 85%, in which case free content will be less available. Though some people will still put content on-line, simply because there are other "rewards", visibility being one such type (for example in the case of articles published by someone looking for a job).

Exactly. The current trend (not necessarily this thread) seems to be saying that services provided to "the people", on the computer, whether it be news or even software, should be free. (thus, open source, free news, etc)

I think we need to make a distinction though between freeware and news. Clearly, much open-source and freeware software is given away completely free. However, news sites like this one, Yahoo, etc are not. They gain their revenue from advertising, joint marketing, and subscriptions. I'm sure the bulk comes from advertising though.

I have a free Yahoo account. I get email, use the calendar to send me SMS messages, look at maps, check financial news, etc. If we could all go out and buy a browser that gave us all of the content on Yahoo's site, with none of the advertising, how long does anyone think Yahoo would stay in business? Eventually, the advertisers would see the drop in click-throughs, and discontinue their advertising.

In fact, this thread has inspired me to go and buy a lifetime membership to this site, which I'm going to do right now.

Mark

[x999x]

This also brings another problem to the front: most news sites are able to supply free content by actually making money out of advertising. Ad blockers, and filters like this program are actually using bandwidth but depriving these sites of their only revenue - unless we're talking about content purchashing, which I don't think is happening here.

Also, in terms of copyright, is it valid for a produtc to strip the content out of someone else's site, and use it? Note that the program is not claiming ownership of content, but even so, it's modifying the material. :roll:
Exactly. It rather surprises me to see this program being promoted here on the front page, knowing how Jason thinks about things like this. In any case, the link does not seem to work anymore, so maybe other people think this is illegal as well.


Are you the same guys who claim that it's illegal to get up and go to the bathroom during a TV commercial? Some people have really creepy ideas about what is and is not 'legal.'

Besides which, it's irrelevant. Despite what corporations would like you to think, the sacred cow of copyright is far from absolute. The core of copyright law here in the U.S. says that in effect, the copyright holder must show demonstrable financial impact--i.e. that they lost money or that the other guy was making money. Neither is the case here.

Well said, I come to this thread to read how the software performs and instead the mood here seems to be "find whats wrong, skew it, and amplify it." :(

So does anyone actually like this software, or tried it for that matter?

[x999x]

However, there's the risk of people changing the blocking to 85%, in which case free content will be less available. Though some people will still put content on-line, simply because there are other "rewards", visibility being one such type (for example in the case of articles published by someone looking for a job).

Exactly. The current trend (not necessarily this thread) seems to be saying that services provided to "the people", on the computer, whether it be news or even software, should be free. (thus, open source, free news, etc)

I think we need to make a distinction though between freeware and news. Clearly, much open-source and freeware software is given away completely free. However, news sites like this one, Yahoo, etc are not. They gain their revenue from advertising, joint marketing, and subscriptions. I'm sure the bulk comes from advertising though.

I have a free Yahoo account. I get email, use the calendar to send me SMS messages, look at maps, check financial news, etc. If we could all go out and buy a browser that gave us all of the content on Yahoo's site, with none of the advertising, how long does anyone think Yahoo would stay in business? Eventually, the advertisers would see the drop in click-throughs, and discontinue their advertising.

In fact, this thread has inspired me to go and buy a lifetime membership to this site, which I'm going to do right now.

Mark

Hi Mark,

I work with an internet advertising firm that does business with yahoo, overture and google, and from viewing the checks they send us for advertising, these companies are here to stay. 300k a month from overture is no laughing matter.

Firstly, you have to remember that out of the bazillions of registered Yahoo users, a very low percentage of them actually click on banners or contextual ads simply because they already know what they want before accessing the site, much like you do, maps, sms, calendar etc. Let me ask you, do you click banners every time you visit yahoo's site to "pay them back" for your free service? I know I don't, and nor do the fifty or so people I know with yahoo accounts.

Stripping out banners isn't going to make yahoo go under, especially if it's only happening on a relatively small userbase like PocketPC. Furthermore, you have to remember that programs like Norton Internet Security can block banners from websites as well, which is a huge difference in userbase by comparison, and based on your closing comments, Yahoo and pretty much the internet would have had to shut it's doors by now if that were the case, but it's clearly not.

I wouldn't worry about IF companies like Yahoo or Google make money, I'd be more worried about how they're making money off of individuals like me and you the minute we ping their site...

[mesposito2]

I wouldn't worry about IF companies like Yahoo or Google make money, I'd be more worried about how they're making money off of individuals like me and you the minute we ping their site...

I really wasn't reacting to the specific software in question here. I just thought the point was valid, that if the content is the product, it makes sense for Internet companies to want to protect their content, and force users to actually visit their site.

Of course if it were to remain just a small group, it wouldn't affect Yahoo's bottom-line. If their revenue truly does come from advertising, which is what I always hear on Wallstreet, then it does stand to reason that they have a right to decide how to present their content.

As far as making money on you and I, up until now, I have not paid Yahoo a penny, which again, seems to make my point.

[Janak Parekh]

Exactly. It rather surprises me to see this program being promoted here on the front page, knowing how Jason thinks about things like this. In any case, the link does not seem to work anymore, so maybe other people think this is illegal as well.
It's not being "promoted" per se. It was interesting and I thought it might merit some discussion, which it indeed has. ;)

As to whether or not extracting data from a webpage is legal, it brings up a whole host of questions. If I write a script that pulls CNN News and emails it to me, is it legal? Or, how about if I use a text-only or speech-impaired browser that can't display ads? Is that legal?

I suggest it's not quite so black-and-white, especially if you look at how HTTP (the transfer protocol used on the web) works. To be precise, here's how a graphical browser does it:

1. Connects to the server and retrieves the HTML file.
2. Looks through the HTML file and begins rendering it.
3. If it sees IMG SRC/EMBED/whatever tags, it then establishes another connection and pulls them down.
4. Completes rendering the page on the screen.

So, if you do step 1 and then don't do 3 or 4... then you won't see the ads. The web doesn't work like a Word document, where you get the entire package in one shot and hiding stuff is tantamount to editing its presentation.

Now, from an ethics standpoint, you may have a point. The legality, though, is not so clear. It's also one thing to be surfing and interacting on a site and its forums like PPCT on a graphical browser, as opposed to simply doing an HTTP GET request and doing what you see fit with the data.

--janak

[jlp]

...
I know that 45% of my users filter ads/banners. This is 45% of my potential revenue that I'm not realising.

...

Users don't have much choice, you install Norton Internet Security and zap it gets rid of most of the ads.

I just setup my notebook with a wifi card; I didn't have antivirus before, so I quickly installed NIS. Just before that the front pages from various sites were sinked inside loads of ad banners. After installation almost everything disappeard but the text.

I think it's overwhelming advertizement that got people to develop ad-blockers. Everybody knows advertizment is important, especially to hobbyist/small sites like this one and yours Maurizio, but overwhelming remains the keyword.