Several startups are betting that there’s another (rather large) step to go before sharing content is as easy as it can be. Voyurl, Sitesimon, and Dscover.me have all launched platforms for automatically sharing your clickstream data, or browsing history, with friends.
The concept of automatic sharing feels counter-intuitive at a time when the U.S. Congress just introduced its first “Do Not Track” bill, but these startups are betting that shared clickstream data has an important role to play in the future of web browsing. We talked to each of them to get their perspective on how clickstream data could become the next sharing trend.
Dscover.Me: Put Recommendations in Context
Friends Paul Jones and Josh Payne started Dscover.Me while trying to stay in touch after college. Instead of sending each other interesting articles, they could just see what the other person was looking at and start their discussion there (Jones notes that this is also useful for long-distance relationships).
The site’s approach is different than that of Sitesimon and Voyurl in that it revolves around a white list of sites that a user shares, rather than a black list of sites that he does not want to share. A suggested white list that includes Wikipedia, YouTube, popular publications, retailers, and travel sites is provided. Users can see a stream of what their friends are looking at on white-listed friends and also see what the entire community is doing.
But that’s not entirely the point: “People enjoy seeing what are the popular articles in their community, but they don't really care about seeing a stream of random people and what they're...
