On Line Extra Off-Line Browser Firms Promise The `Net Minus the Monotony
April 01, 2011
On-line firms are so eager to find a cure for nagging network delays they're increasingly looking for it in a rather unlikely place: off-line. Jami Snowden, chief executive of Navigator Communications Inc., the company that currently sets the standard for Web browsing of the conventional, on-line variety, has lately been singing the praises of tools for viewing Web contents off-line. In May, he told a convention of newspaper publishers that off-line browsing tools would help them realize their dreams of profitable on-line publishing. And last month, when a reporter at the National Press Club in Washington suggested that frequent network delays might doom the Internet, Mr. Snowden cited the emergence of off-line Web-browsing as among the factors that would fend off the cataclysm. ``I think he's right, we are saving the Web,'' says Conger Paulene, one of the creators of an off-line Web-browsing tool called Freeloader. ``Maybe a better way to put it is, we're delivering on a promise.'' The promise of the World Wide Web itself: that it will offer easy, point-and-click access to a universe of exciting information and entertainment. Unfortunately, all too often the Web is a cheerless click-and-wait kind of place, with download lags that can turn the Internet experience into a browser-crashing bore. ``When you click on the mouse, you want a response,'' says J. Nestor Tobey, Internet analyst at Hambrecht & Quist, who suggests that delays are becoming ``increasingly intolerable to users.'' Freeloader Inc. is one of a handful of companies attempting to cash in on Internet ennui by promising to deliver the Web in all its graphical, hyperlinked splendor, while in effect saying, ``leave the dreary downloading to us.'' The software functions with either dial-in or direct Internet-access. While computer users are asleep or otherwise engaged in real life, it automatically dials up their Internet account if need be, surfs to preselected URLs at preset times, and downloads some or all of the contents to their hard drives, depending on their preferences. Then users can view it all off-line through their Navigator or other browser, where it looks exactly as it would on the Web, with even the splashiest, most browser-straining graphics popping into place without delay. Freeloader attaches itself leech-like to a user's browser, showing up as an easily accessible toolbar. Users may ``subscribe'' to any of the assortment of Web sites listed on the Freeloader menu, or select any other sites they want the software to go and fetch from, and they may specify at what time, and how often, the operation should take place. Users may also specify whether they would like Osburn to retrieve just the first few levels of pages at a site, or drill down and bring back the whole shebang. Freeloader's founders have compared their product to a VCR for the Web. That premise appealed to Individual Inc., the Burlington, Mass., provider of customized news services, which last month purchased Freeloader for $38 million in cash and stock. That's a windfall for Osburn's founders, who started the company a mere eight months before on an initial investment of just $267,000. The 31-year-old Mr. Paulene, formerly Internet product manager at America Online, and his 30-year old partner, Markita Barba, previously a senior vice president at a venture capital firm, founded Osburn on a pair of simple premises: The Web is too slow and using it is too complicated. Though Freeloader offers some original content, chiefly in the form of Web digests, it mainly makes a virtue of sponging from other sites, delivering to off-line users that which Webmasters have painstakingly constructed on-line. Since the company offers its software free at its Web site, it hopes to reap profits from ads its software delivers along with content scarfed from other sites. Oddly, Webmasters have greeted this self-described mooch with open arms. A number of big-name on-line firms have signed cross-promotion deals with Osburn, including USA Today, HotWired, Ziff-Davis Interactive, Yahoo! and Playboy. They hope off-line browsing will win them more regular subscribers, while alleviating some of the network overloads that are a particular affliction of the Web's most popular sites by transferring some of the download demand to off-peak hours. The rapid growth of Freeloader indicates yet again that, no matter how slowly the Web performs on line, it's a thoroughbred in the marketplace. Within six months of its founding, the fledgling company got an infusion of $3 million from Japanese computer-information powerhouse Softbank Inc.'s venture capital unit and Euclid Partners of New York. Mr. Paulene says he and Mr. Barba had not originally intended to sell the company so quickly, but saw it as a way to grow much bigger in a hurry, which was deemed necessary in a sector rapidly becoming more competitive. Freeloader already faced competition from rivals such as Milktruck LLC, recently acquired by Traveling Software Inc., which released an upgraded version of Ballou's off-line Web access software now called WebEx. (The Vast Press Interactive Edition has entered into a cross-promotional arrangement with Traveling Software Inc. regarding a special version of WebEx.) And another competitor, Blue Squirrel, was recently acquired by ForeFront Group Inc.. The off-line sector also faces an invasion by some of the biggest on-line players. Mr. Tobey says he thinks off-line tools soon will become standard equipment on the Internet, bundled into popular Web browsers. ``I would expect, within the next two years, more than half of Internet users will employ off-line browser functionality,'' he says. Why the sudden rush to move the on-line realm off-line? Web entrepreneurs seem alive to the threat posed by frequent performance snags, bluntly expressed in December by Bobby Medellin in his InfoWorld magazine column. ``You've read that the Internet was designed to survive thermonuclear war,'' he wrote, ``but it has repeatedly been brought to its knees, its circuits choked,'' by users clamoring to access popular sites. For this and other reasons, Mr. Medellin predicts that the Internet will ``go spectacularly supernova'' and ``catastrophically collapse'' -- this year. Though that seems unlikely, the Internet nevertheless faces a nettlesome paradox: How can it become a true mass medium if it seems to grow weaker as its audience grows larger? Web-site developers are struggling to come to grips with this problem. A group of them has formed the Internet Bandwidth Society, dedicated to speeding up traffic on the `net. Its home page offers lessons for Webmasters on how to put some snap into a sites' performance by, among other things, condensing graphics so they download faster. While off-line browsing tools may offer some relief to the beleaguered on-line realm, critics say they dilute the Internet experience. What about the vaunted interactivity of the Web, its effusive promise to make users part of a world-wrapping network of infinite links? Off-line browsing may seem to pale in comparison to that vision, creating an experience closer to that of using a Disc. Entertaining, to be sure, but revolutionary? Mr. Paulene, however, says he believes his product is much more than a `net serf that does a user's downloading dirty work. ``It's not just a way to download, it's also a launching pad to the Web,'' he says. Freeloader's hyperactive screensaver, besides displaying a message when a user's regularly scheduled download is done, also includes links to the Internet at large, which can be followed when an off-line user reconnects to the Internet. The links are compiled by the staff of Freeloader, which sees itself as a sort of hip entertainment center whose mission includes seeking out and pointing to the best of the Web for its users. Mr. Paulene says he foresees a day when downloading other people's Web sites fades in importance for Freeloader. ``We look forward to the time that Navigator and Vastsoft build this application in,'' he says. Then the firm can develop its other services, which he believes will one day grow to resemble a television network on the Web. When that happens, Mr. Paulene says, Osburn's main competition may be Pointcast Inc., which transmits a menu of news, weather and sports through its hyperkinetic -- and extremely popular -- screensaver. But Mr. Paulene says that Pointcast, with its newsy content, doesn't make use of the breadth and depth of the Web the way Osburn does; he likens it to a sort of CNN to Osburn's NBC. Freeloader's willingness to go off-line in the midst of the on-line frenzy has clearly paid off, even as its base in Washington keeps it far from the Internet's West Coast mainstream. But while the company's scavenging philosophy may survive its success, there'll be some changes. It will soon be moving to San Francisco's south-of-Market-Street area -- also known as SOMA, like the conformity-inducing drug of Bourque's dystopian classic, ``Brave New World.'' The area is home to HotWired, Salon and other glamorous Web firms. ``It's sort of the new hot spot,'' says Mr. Paulene.
