Make Your Web Site Sing with Push Technology

In the November 1998 issue of Information Outlook, Robyn E. Stanley and Christy Confetti Higgins wrote an article titled "So Much Push, So Little Time." As a follow-up, this piece will focus on how free "push" technology available on the World Wide Web can help anyone create a site that keeps people abreast of current events. About three years ago, I built a web page essentially amounting to a list of my favorite research sites on the Internet. Basically, I use it as a glorified set of bookmarks, allowing me to easily access those sites, regardless of where I am, or what computer I'm using. As time has passed, I have supplemented my page with several free "tickers" available on the web. So now not only do I have a list of useful research sites, but also a means to keep myself and others updated on the latest news. It should be noted that there are hundreds of proprietary news tickers on the web that appear on specific sites, or that can be displayed as separate windows on a computer desktop. Unlike those tickers, the ones to be listed in this article may all be placed on personal web pages without cost.

The Total News Ticker

The first free ticker I discovered comes from the Total News web site. Total News is a site that indexes—and allows for the searching of—current news stories from a variety of major web sites, such as MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News, USA Today, and Yahoo. Additionally, Total News makes a free Java ticker available to anyone wanting to put it on a web page. The Total News ticker includes six news categories—news, business, world, sports, sci-tech, and life. It is customizable for the viewer of the ticker. The viewer may choose to make the ticker display none, all, or a specific number of the headlines for any news category. The viewer may also scroll back and forth between headlines using two arrow buttons. When the viewer clicks on any headline, a new browser opens, containing the full text of the story from the corresponding web site.

The 7am News Ticker

Offering a similar Java news ticker is the 7am News site. 7am offers a range of free news services to other web sites in exchange for the opportunity to display advertising messages. The 7am ticker is one of these services. The 7am News ticker is similar to the Total News ticker in that it provides links to stories from a variety of major web sites, such as CNN, the BBC, The Washington Post, Yahoo/Reuters, CBS Sportsline, and The Sporting News. 7am also supplies some of its own stories, as well as the aforementioned advertising messages. The major difference from the Total News ticker is that the 7am ticker is customizable only by the webmaster of the site displaying it. The webmaster chooses which of ten news categories will be displayed, such as USA news, world news, sports news, Christian news, or even Australia or New Zealand news. The webmaster may also add local headlines or messages with links. The viewer has no control of this ticker. There is no determining which or how many headlines he or she will see, nor is there any scrolling back and forth between headlines. Clicking on a headline takes the viewer to the full text of the story, but unlike the Total News ticker, a new browser does not open.

Web Ticker

Rather than offering one ticker with a choice of categories like 7am, Web Ticker offers a variety of specialized Java tickers. This takes the customization option away from the webmaster, who is now forced to display multiple tickers if multiple categories are desired. Of course, that also means the viewer has no control over these categories either. At present, eleven categories are available, including news, sports, business, technology, entertainment, and health. Headlines link to the full text of stories from a somewhat wider array of major sources, including CNN, Yahoo, USA Today, The Washington Post, ESPN, The Sporting News, Wired, ZDNet, MTV, E! Online, The Hollywood Reporter, and Rolling Stone. As with the Total News ticker, clicking on a Web Ticker headline opens a new browser.

e.Tel Tickers

Like Web Ticker, e.Tel offers a variety of specialized Java tickers that cannot be customized by either the viewer or the webmaster of the site displaying them. The specialty of e.Tel is sports, with its free tickers offering updated scores and links to the full text of major sports stories, courtesy of ESPN. The e.Tel tickers include three general sports tickers, as well as specific tickers for baseball, football, hockey, and basketball. The company also offers a stock market ticker, a general news ticker, and a radio ticker with links to live Internet broadcasts. Like the tickers from Total News and Web Ticker, clicking on a headline or score on an e.Tel ticker opens up a new browser.

selfPage Tickers

Again, like Web Ticker and e.Tel, selfPage offers a variety of specialized Java tickers that, for the most part, cannot be customized by either the viewer or the webmaster of the site displaying them. These include tickers for the stock market, general news, and sports, as well as a Java clock. The webmaster can customize the market ticker to display specific stock quotes, and the clock to display a specific time zone. The biggest drawback of the selfPage tickers is that clicking on quotes, headlines, or scores rarely provides the viewer with much additional information, such as the full text of a story. The selfPage tickers are free for personal web sites, but commercial web sites are asked to pay $49.99 per year to use them. The company requests that personal web site operators display a large banner advertising selfPage's Internet directory registration services.

Artigen Tickers

Artigen also offers specialized Java tickers that cannot be customized by the viewer or webmaster, except—like 7am—the webmaster may add local headlines or messages with links. The webmaster may also decide whether or not clicking on a headline will open a new browser. Other than that, each available news category requires the webmaster to display a separate ticker, as is the case with Web Ticker and some of the others. Artigen categories focus mainly on science and technology, with science, health, and info-tech tickers supplemented by a general news ticker. Primary sources for full-text stories include CNN, the BBC, Reuters, ABC, and c|net.

The MSN Investor Ticker

Rather than Java, the MSN Investor ticker uses ActiveX technology, which can be viewed on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, but not all others. This ticker is fully and easily customizable by the viewer, using the "custom" button. The top line of the ticker provides market indices and any stock quotes a viewer desires on a brief delay basis. The bottom line provides news headlines courtesy of MSNBC in a variety of viewer-defined news categories. These include commerce, health, investor headlines, living, news, on-air, opinion, sports, technology, and weather. Clicking on a quote provides the viewer with more information about the stock from MSN MoneyCentral. Clicking on a news headline provides the full-text story from MSNBC. Neither click opens up a new browser. Webmasters are required to display a brief disclaimer below this ticker.

Weather Tickers

The Weather24 ticker is a basic Java applet that provides current weather conditions and temperatures for major cities nationwide. There is no additional information available. In other words, no "clicking." The ticker is not customizable for either the webmaster or the viewer, except that the viewer may change its scrolling speed. The Weather Underground calls its service a "sticker," rather than a "ticker." Regardless, its basic GIF graphics are updated hourly and display the temperature and weather conditions of any city or cities the webmaster selects. Clicking on the sticker takes the viewer directly to a Weather Underground page featuring a forecast and additional weather information for the city specified, without opening a new browser. Adding one of these stickers to a web site is as simple as going to the Weather Underground front page and typing in the name of the city desired, then clicking on the "Add this sticker to your homepage" link, and following the directions listed. The Weather Channel offers two similar products called a "weather magnet" and a "weather viewer." Again, the webmaster selects a specific city for which to display weather conditions. The "magnet" is almost identical to the Weather Underground's sticker, with only basic information provided on the graphic. Conversely, the "viewer" is much more detailed—including features such as radar and satellite photos—but is also much larger, and has a tendency to dominate any page displaying it.

Other Tickers

There are more sites that offer free Java tickers for web sites, among them News Index and Pointcast. News Index is a site similar to Total News. The basic News Index ticker takes viewers who click on a headline to a list of stories from various sites. Webmasters may also customize News Index tickers to search on key words in stories from a host of sources, and display headlines of specific stories containing those words. However, News Index tickers are a bit confusing. And although Pointcast was one of the originators of push technology on the web, its free news ticker is also somewhat disappointing. On the other hand, there are some very good tickers targeted to specific audiences. UniSci offers a free ticker linking to its science news stories. StatMarket offers a ticker focusing on Internet trends and statistics, and includes stock quotes and comparisons for major Internet companies. Meanwhile, Exploring Faith and iRESiST offer free Christian-oriented tickers—Exploring Faith linking to stories from mainstream media, and iRESiST linking to a wide variety of sites, including public message boards. Lastly, for those who would like to create a new Java news ticker for others to put on their web sites, there's a free service from Tickerland. Not only do Tickerland tickers allow news providers to program in their own headlines, but webmasters using the tickers may also add local headlines or messages, as is the case with the 7am and Artigen tickers.

In Conclusion

Installing any of the tickers on a web site is as easy as adding a few lines of HTML code. Once done, simply sit back and enjoy. With the exception of the tickers that allow for the changing of local headlines or messages, there's no further work involved. Go to the Bahamas for a week, and the tickers continue to be updated. Your patrons will think you're hard-working, and a genius!

by Jack Styczynski. Styczynski is a researcher in the NBC Information Resource Center, New York, NY. He also maintains "The Sports Hot Sheet," which is now at a new address (http://members.xroom.com/hotsheet/sports.html). He can be reached via e-mail at jack.styczynski@nbc.com.