"On
average, people in the functions we studied spend 8 hours
per week obtaining, reviewing, and analysing external
information. Ten percent of all users spend over 20 hours
per week looking for information."
Outsell Inc, 2001
In many of todays working environments it is of paramount
importance that decisions are made on an informed basis.
It is no secret that information found on the web can
greatly benefit day-to-day decision-making.
A wealth of information is available over the Internet,
unfortunately locating and tracking pertinent information
via existing Internet 'search engines' can be an arduous
and time-consuming task. The fact is that search engines
address the very broadest user requirements and often
also fail to reveal the very latest developments.
What knowledge-workers require is an intuitive tool
to provide them with relevant information, as soon as
it becomes available.
NewsConsole is available in two flavours:
- promotional edition
- enterprise edition
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About NewsConsole
Happyworm have created NewsConsole an intuitive tailor-made
delivery mechanism that is capable of aggregating news
from a variety of sources and presenting it efficiently
and intuitively to the end user in a way that complements
their working environment.
NewsConsole builds on the services that Moreover, Reuters
and other news harvesters provide to create a news delivery
system that allows users to intuitively retrieve the
very latest and most relevant news.
Features
- News in Real Time
NewsConsole regularly queries its sources in order
to deliver the very latest news as soon as it becomes
available.
- Personalisation
Users can personalise NewsConsole at any time to deliver
relevant content by selecting a series of 'favourite'
news categories.
- Aggregation
News content from separate news providers can be aggregated
in different forms according to personal preference.
- Customisation
Happyworm can customise NewsConsole to fit every company
branding.
- Viewing Modes
NewsConsole can be viewed as part of a web-page or
it can sit permanently on the desktop.
Once detached NewsConsole can be scaled to a size
that the user feels comfortable with and can even
be made 'full screen' for use as a common display.
- Ease of Use
To view any news item in more detail the user simply
clicks on the headline of interest to display the
detailed article in a separate browser window.
NewsConsole's intuitive facilitate quick access to
all available headlines.
- Efficiency
NewsConsole is small in size and once launched it
takes up a very little network bandwidth to update
news data. This means that even while being used by
a large amount of users the impact on network performance
is extremely minimal.
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Additional Functionality
As Flash is built into a number of new devices, delivery
systems could include mobile palmtops, pocket PCs, the
latest generation of mobile phones or even the current
generation of phones via SMS.
Advantages of Happyworm's NewsConsole
over other Web-page based approaches
Push Technology
It can effectively push content to the user. Allowing
them to receive updated information without having to
dedicate their complete attention to it.
Rich Client
Developed using Macromedia Flash technology NewsConsole
has a dynamic and highly functional graphical user interface.
Integration with XML
NewsConsole handles the news in XML
format, the fast becoming standard format for data transfer
between web applications.
Stand-Alone
NewsConsole functions independently from a web-page
or a browser, so there is no need for a browser to be
constantly open.
Low Bandwidth
Because NewsConsole is created with Flash, a vector
based format, it is extremely small in size.
Accessibility
Using a vector based format also delivers the advantage
of allowing the user the option to scale the application
to a size they are comfortable with, this is especially
important for the visually impaired but also useful
for users keen to keep the console open at all times
while taking up the minimum of space on their desktop.
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