Haoei and Google Daohang: Two Web 1.5 Startpages You Might Want to Look

Written by Luyi Chen on March 10, 2007
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Before dynamic startpages like Netvibes dominate the market, there’re static startpages, which show bookmarks organized with columns all in one page. Unlike Yahoo Directory which is more for research purpose, these startpages aggregates websites that you would visit several times in a day.

For readers who are reading us, you don’t need this kind of service, but if you are teaching your grandma to learn the Internet, they will save you a lot of time.

HaoeiThe title of this post is just kidding, Haoei is really a web 2.0 product. It uses a lot of Ajax, so that users can drag of drop links between columns. Not sure if I am using the wrong browser, but I cannot move the columns in Firefox, as it supposed to behave.

Users’ startpages has their username in the URL, so that they are sharable. Haoei even provides a directory, so that you can find what others are creating. Users can view some properties of the creator of the page, like his occupation and interest. This feature is useful for you to find your peers with similar taste. But wait, there’re more. Users can clone other’s startpages, so that they don’t have to start from zero. The idea is identical to Ning.

There’s a feature that you won’t use unless you are really bored. Haoei Go is a StumbleUpon like services, which will direct you to a random site. But it’s using iFrame, which is disliked by most webmasters. But the usefulness in doing this is that you can save the link into your Haoei page with one click. I don’t use this kind of service, mostly because of security reason. Not all sites are (work) safe.

Google DaohangLet’s turn our eyes to what the 800 pound gorilla has just released in China. Google Daohang is supposed to be the second localized product from Google China. The former release is Google Trend. Other two products still behind the curtain but are already none secret is Rebang and Chinese input method.

Most of the existing reports from Chinese blogoshpere are negative. Not that this product is buggy, but people have higher expectations from Google. Let’s face it, if you have a blog and you are reporting a new product within 24 hours after it launched, you surely don’t need a static startpage like this. But quite a lot of users in China will benefit from this product. And Google China will get what it wants, traffic, traffic…

Google actually has the potential to make this product even more useful. Don’t know how they compiled these lists. If they are using some algorithms from search history, they probably can product a Technorati 100 for websites.

2 Responses to “Haoei and Google Daohang: Two Web 1.5 Startpages You Might Want to Look”

  1. istrator on March 11th, 2007 3:49 pm

    i can user haoei.com in firefox 1.5

  2. Caili on March 19th, 2007 9:04 pm

    One of my websites (http://www.navicool.com, alpha launched two weeks ago) does the similar job, and IMO much better :)

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