Web page note posting made easy.
By Jonathan Oatis
NEW YORK, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Third Voice, Odigo, uTOK, esgear, Instant Rendesvouz, Gooey. Gibberish? Hardly. All are services that add new ways of communicating on the Internet, including the ability to post notes on a Web page.
Communicating is one of the Internet's top killer apps -- be it electronic mail, discussion groups or real-time chat. The newest methods include putting your own mark on Web pages or, in some cases, chatting while at a particular page.
''We are creating a new category ... a new way to browse the Web,'' Third Voice co-founder and Chief Executive Eng-Siong Tan said in an interview from the start-up company's headquarters in Redwood City, Calif.
Third Voice's software -- which can be downloaded for free after you register at its Web site at thirdvoice.com -- gives you the power to highlight text on a Web site, then post a note alongside it. But only those using the software can see your note.
The software adds a toolbar to the upper lefthand side of your browser that can be minimized so it's barely visible. When you hit a Web page containing Third Voice notes, the toolbar alerts you by changing color from green to gold. Notes appear on the page as arrows in tiny boxes. Click on a box, and you see the note.
You can reply to a note, or reply to a reply, kicking off a discussion.
Want to limit who can see your note? No problem. The software lets you post personal notes only you can see or limit access to a group of Third Voice users you created beforehand.
One company uses Third Voice to check out a competitor's Web site, posting notes that only a group of company employees can see, Tan said. He said teachers are looking into using the software for online tutorials.
Tan -- who came to the United States after he and two other research engineers in Singapore had the idea for Third Voice -- wouldn't say how many people are using his product, citing competition. But he said users come from as far away as Australia, Russia, Brazil and Singapore and that their numbers have grown exponentially since the software was introduced in May.
You can use the software to see whether other pages on a given site have notes, and to go right to those pages. The toolbar also has tabs to take you to heavily annotated sites, such as the ''Blair Witch Project'' Web site or CNN Interactive, or to Third Voice's site.
Third Voice's site offers links to notes organized by category, so if you want to find sites with notes about technology, for example, this is the place to go.
Third Voice has arranged for five or six columnists, including New York newspaper veteran Linda Stasi, to add their commentary to Web sites. Stasi, for example, inserted her thoughts on whether Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush should admit to past drug use on Bush's own campaign site.
But, as often occurs on the Net, not all Third Voice notes are intelligent commentary. There are ads and witless exchanges that boil down to ''Oh yeah, so's your mother.'' Third Voice addressed this issue; an enhanced version of the software released in July allows you to vote on whether a note is junk or great and then filter out the junk notes.
Third Voice works only with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. A version for the rival Netscape Navigator browser is planned soon.
Some object to Third Voice, which they see as going against a webmaster's desire to present a site as he or she wants it to be seen. A group called Say NO to Third Voice has presented its case on its Web site, saynotothirdvoice.com.
There are a fair number of Third Voice notes on this site.
Third Voice is not the only virtual thumbtack. uTOK, available at utok.com, also allows users to post Web site notes to the general public, a given group or themselves.
But, unlike Third Voice, you don't see the notes on the page itself. The software generates a small, separate window that tells you whether a given site has any public, group or private notes. Click on one of those categories, and the notes appear, organized by subject. A pull-down menu lists sites with uTOK notes. You can also vote on a note, giving it a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
A program called Odigo also lets you post notes associated with a given page, but that's the least of its abilities. Odigo is Internet radar; it finds the Web sites Odigo users are visiting, helps you locate the users you want to chat with at that site and then enables you to chat with them.
Like uTOK -- or, for that matter, any of a number of instant messaging programs -- Odigo appears as a rectangular window you can drag to the side.
Odigo shows the sites most popular with Odigo users, with a bar graph over each site to illustrate just how popular they are. Once at a site, you can bring up a ''radar screen'' window that shows you which Odigo users are there. Then the fun begins.
When you sign up for Odigo and download the software from odigo.com, you can list biographical details such as age, geographical location, occupation, marital status -- including ''single but busy'' -- and your intentions. When you're running Odigo, you can also broadcast your mood, be it bored, happy, flirtatious, mellow or indifferent.
So, if you want to find a flirtatious, married Brazilian woman in her 40s who works in construction and is looking for romance, you may luck out. Just use the software's easy-to-adjust filters to find the people you want to chat with.
You can look at the details a user has provided and send them e-mail or a computer file if you want.
Like Odigo, Gooey and Instant Rendesvouz show you which sites are most popular with its respective users and who's at a particular site. They allow you to chat with them one-on-one, as well as in groups. But they're simpler -- you can't filter users by biographical details, although you can look at a user's profile. Neither lets you post notes.
Gooey adds a ''Gooey Zone'' window with some fun cartoons, games and art. The ''Cliffs Notes'' version of Moby Dick is particularly amusing.
Get Gooey at gooey.com. Instant Rendesvouz can be had at multimate.net.
esgear, for ''Essential Surfing Gear,'' offers yet another take on Web surfing. The software adds a toolbar to the right side of your browser which enables you to post a note on a Web page or hold a discussion linked to the page.
esgear adds guided tours of selected Web sites dubbed ''e-trails,'' a Web page language translator and other functions. The program, available at esgear.com, had one other consequence: it throttled Third Voice.
(The NetDestinations column appears weekly. You can e-mail Jonathan Oatis at jonathan.oatis(at)reuters.com)
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