Trek: A new way to browse the web.

[jeremykross]

Hey all.

Many of you were invaluable in the early days of Trek helping with testing. I've just published a new version and am trying to grow the userbase.

For those unaware, Trek represents a logical evolution of web 2.0 and social networking. It incorporates several features from browsers, instant messaging clients, and forums to create a social experience while browsing the web. People who share similar interests and surf the same sites will be able to meet and interact, forming new friendships and bonds.

The maximum potential of Trek is dependent upon the maximum number of users. You are not obligated to use it if you wish not to but it is completely free, does not contain any viruses or spyware. We are not a big corporation, and we won't sell or steal your emails or any other information you wish to provide us. This is a three man show, trying to better the internet with a new, exciting, and enriching idea.

If you are still a bit iffy, come over to the site, look at some screenshots, and watch some videos. You can download it and try it out, and if you don't like it, it's easy to remove. The worst it can hurt is a few minutes of your time:

http://www.trekbrowser.com

[praveesh]

Is it open source

[jeremykross]

Not presently. But I may very well open source it. I haven't quite figured out all of the angles on that. I'd like to get a feel for how much interest there is (both in the app, and its source) before I make a decision.

[Rasa1111]

this part sounds quite interesting..

With Trek, you can actually see and communicate with the other users browsing the same web site as you. :) Niice.
will check it out, and possibly help spread it.
open source would be sweeet!
thanks.

[praveesh]

Unless you are planning to make money by selling the app, you could open source it . That would help you get security holes and bugs fixed easily and get patches from people outside. And it will make us really sure that there isn't any malicious code in it .

[-humanaut-]

Unless you are planning to make money by selling the app, you could open source it . That would help you get security holes and bugs fixed easily and get patches from people outside. And it will make us really sure that there isn't any malicious code in it .

I agree I've never heard of it i'm not trusting it yet.

[praveesh]

Any way, the features are interesting and Iam going to give it a go

[undecim]

Not presently. But I may very well open source it. I haven't quite figured out all of the angles on that. I'd like to get a feel for how much interest there is (both in the app, and its source) before I make a decision.

I'm interested in it, but I'm weary of installing closed source applications from sources I'm not familiar with.

Once it's open source and others have had a chance to look at it, I might install it.

[Excedio]

I'm interested in it, but I'm weary of installing closed source applications from sources I'm not familiar with.

Once it's open source and others have had a chance to look at it, I might install it.

This.

[AllRadioisDead]

This thread is funny already.

[Cuddles McKitten]

I'll install it if there's a feature that allows my avatar to do battle with the avatars of others. Especially if I'm annoyed by them bouncing around on the page I'm looking at and can banish them from said website for a certain period of time.

[undecim]

I'll install it if there's a feature that allows my avatar to do battle with the avatars of others. Especially if I'm annoyed by them bouncing around on the page I'm looking at and can banish them from said website for a certain period of time.

An rpg game that puts you against others browsing the same page?

If someone makes a Firefox addon that does this, they will be my hero.

[tica vun]

Not presently. But I may very well open source it. I haven't quite figured out all of the angles on that. I'd like to get a feel for how much interest there is (both in the app, and its source) before I make a decision.

It dares post non-Free Software! BURN THE HERETIC, PURGE THE UNCLEAN!

:P

[jeremykross]

You guys are right. (Not you cuddles, that was a stupid idea. :-) ). Trek should be open source. But I'm a bit nervous about the prospect really.

If I open source the server, anybody can run their own version. How does one prevent communal fragmentation? Furthermore, I was hoping to at least break even on the work I'm doing here. How does one pay for web/server space with an open source model?

Finally, I don't know how much time I can devote to coordination and management when I prefer writing code.

Anyone have thoughts?

@Cuddles, feel free to fork.

[dragos240]

I've used trek before. I tried to help, nobody was ever on.

[jeremykross]

I've used trek before. I tried to help, nobody was ever on.

Hey dragos. Sorry about not posting your script. I wanted to try it out beforehand, but it got lost in the shuffle. I made sure to build proper rpms this time around.

As for nobody ever being on...well, no counter. It needs users to be cool, it needs to be cool to get users. I imagine there's some number whereby the community will become self-propagating. I just don't know how to get there.

[dragos240]

That's alright. However. You should also get a self extracting script, or at least a tarball for those of us who don't use ubuntu or febora. I actually use debian. Unfortunately, the packages are named differently in debian than in ubuntu. So I can't install trek again. By the way, are our accounts still active?

[P4man]

You guys are right. (Not you cuddles, that was a stupid idea. :-) ). Trek should be open source. But I'm a bit nervous about the prospect really.

If I open source the server, anybody can run their own version. How does one prevent communal fragmentation? Furthermore, I was hoping to at least break even on the work I'm doing here. How does one pay for web/server space with an open source model?

Finally, I don't know how much time I can devote to coordination and management when I prefer writing code.

Anyone have thoughts?

@Cuddles, feel free to fork.

Opensource doesnt mean you cant have a commercial business model. it doesnt even mean the software has to be free (although there is probably no way to make money selling this sort of software). It just means the code is there for everyone to see.

If you are afraid of someone taking the code and forking a new version, you could license under a more restrictive license than GPL. Im no specialist, so Ill just shut up there and refer to google and wikipedia or have others chime in, but opensourcing it doesnt mean suddenly 300 developpers will start coding for you, but you might get idea's, bugs, ports, patches and what not. It should help, even if you wont start something as streamlined as canonical from day one :)

As for the business model itself, well, thats a rather fundamental issue, but I dont think it has much to do with opensource or not. Basically you either try selling the software (good luck with that), or by selling additional support and services (probably tricky to find services related to this that people would pay for, but maybe? Facebook did it) or search and/or advertising like Mozilla and every other browser, piggybacking google. The latter is probably your best bet.

Anyway, back to the product, I havent tried it, and Im a pretty antisocial networking guy, so dont pay too much attention to my opinion, but I think you;d have more luck if this where a firefox/chrome plugin rather than a (yet another) separate browser, even though you say it isnt one, it certainly looks like one ;). Its an interesting idea, but I am not attracted to it, but neither am I attracted to facebook & Co so dont let that spoil your enthusiasm :)

[jeremykross]

That's alright. However. You should also get a self extracting script, or at least a tarball for those of us who don't use ubuntu or febora. I actually use debian. Unfortunately, the packages are named differently in debian than in ubuntu. So I can't install trek again. By the way, are our accounts still active?

Hah. Oh my. Sorry about that.. I swore you said fedora.

Anyway, I thought there was package compatibility between Debian and Ubuntu. I'll put a tarball together.

I've made some changes to the database, so your account is gone. But, I'm quite happy where everything's at atm; I don't forsee having to flush the data again.

[dragos240]

I actually used gentoo at that point. An ebuild would be pointless.
"Anyway, I thought there was package compatibility between Debian and Ubuntu."
Yes, many packages are named the same, but some are not. Including the ones needed for the deb you provided.

[jeremykross]

As for the business model itself, well, thats a rather fundamental issue, but I dont think it has much to do with opensource or not. Basically you either try selling the software (good luck with that), or by selling additional support and services (probably tricky to find services related to this that people would pay for, but maybe? Facebook did it) or search and/or advertising like Mozilla and every other browser, piggybacking google. The latter is probably your best bet.


Ads are the obvious conduit to monetization atm. But you can't really serve them in an opensource app.. Someone could just compile out the offending code. A more restrictive license might alleviate this...but really..what's the point?

Of course, I can't sell Trek. Although someone is making a go of that with a similar product (Virtual Places Chat (http://www.vpchat.com/)) that is a subscription model.

A default search engine seems to be the obvious means. Google/Firefox, Yahoo/Ubuntu. Seems like a limited solution at best.

I should've written an iPhone app...people will still pay for those :-).

[wirepuller134]

Installed it, and it works very well. Thank you for the work thus far!! One question, will there be a way, implemented later to import bookmarks from Firefox?

[rabid9797]

How do I find other users to trek with? It's pretty empty around here.

[praveesh]

Why don't you take a patent of your idea ?

[praveesh]

Ads are the obvious conduit to monetization atm. But you can't really serve them in an opensource app.. Someone could just compile out the offending code. A more restrictive license might alleviate this...but really..what's the point?

Of course, I can't sell Trek. Although someone is making a go of that with a similar product (Virtual Places Chat (http://www.vpchat.com/)) that is a subscription model.

A default search engine seems to be the obvious means. Google/Firefox, Yahoo/Ubuntu. Seems like a limited solution at best.

I should've written an iPhone app...people will still pay for those :-).

iphone app is a really good idea.

[purgatori]

Ugh. While I commend anyone who puts time and effort into a free software project, this one couldn't be more antithetical to my vision of what the web should/could be (in fact, I want the web to go away and be replaced by something more like Gopher).

[chriskin]

Hey all.

Many of you were invaluable in the early days of Trek helping with testing. I've just published a new version and am trying to grow the userbase.

For those unaware, Trek represents a logical evolution of web 2.0 and social networking. It incorporates several features from browsers, instant messaging clients, and forums to create a social experience while browsing the web. People who share similar interests and surf the same sites will be able to meet and interact, forming new friendships and bonds.

The maximum potential of Trek is dependent upon the maximum number of users. You are not obligated to use it if you wish not to but it is completely free, does not contain any viruses or spyware. We are not a big corporation, and we won't sell or steal your emails or any other information you wish to provide us. This is a three man show, trying to better the internet with a new, exciting, and enriching idea.

If you are still a bit iffy, come over to the site, look at some screenshots, and watch some videos. You can download it and try it out, and if you don't like it, it's easy to remove. The worst it can hurt is a few minutes of your time:

http://www.trekbrowser.com

is there any reason why this is a seperate browser rather than an extension for firefox and/or chrome?

i mean, who would change their browsers to one that has an awesome feature if 1)they won't be able to use as noone will be using the browser 2)they would have to give away all the plugins and power of a browser backed by many professionals?

[P4man]

Ads are the obvious conduit to monetization atm. But you can't really serve them in an opensource app.. Someone could just compile out the offending code. A more restrictive license might alleviate this...but really..what's the point?

I dont mean popup ads, but rather selling your searches to google or yahoo, just like mozilla foundation does to finance firefox (they made $72M that way last year). No one is gonna make a fork to code that out, we like google search boxes :)

As for "the point", Point of releasing the source code is that others can verify whats going on in your code. There is quite a bit of privacy concern here (not too mention fears of malware, backdoors etc). You could make the sourcecode available, but not allowing distribution. Let people play around with the source on their machine, so they can test, suggest improvements, make ports to other platforms, etc, but have them submit those patches to you and you decide what goes in what doesnt.

Then again, it depends on your business model, but GPL-ing the code might make more sense. Look at Skype; finally they are about to opensource their client (or have already, havent kept up) so people can work on improving it -on linux especially. But even modified skype clients will still have to connect to skype's servers and provide their (also paying) services, so it really doesnt matter to skype what client you use. They are not serving ads anyway.


Of course, I can't sell Trek. Although someone is making a go of that with a similar product (Virtual Places Chat (http://www.vpchat.com/)) that is a subscription model.

A default search engine seems to be the obvious means. Google/Firefox, Yahoo/Ubuntu. Seems like a limited solution at best.

I should've written an iPhone app...people will still pay for those :-).



Or you can take the youtube/myspace business model of not having a clue how to generate revenue, just make sure it becomes wildly popular and then wait for MS or Google or Apple to sign you a big fat cheque :D

[nikhilbhardwaj]

its your choice on the licensing
if you do choose to go opensource make sure you do your research its more complicated than just sharing your code among other things you cant change the licence afterwards.

apart from that i found the video at your site very interesting
but i'm not running ubuntu/debian i'm running arch linux
i'll try to extract the binaries from the deb and try running it

your idea is fantastic
and as other users have suggested an addon to firefox/opera would see you get a wider audience.

keep up the good work
and best of luck with your project

[dragos240]

is there any reason why this is a seperate browser rather than an extension for firefox and/or chrome?

i mean, who would change their browsers to one that has an awesome feature if 1)they won't be able to use as noone will be using the browser 2)they would have to give away all the plugins and power of a browser backed by many professionals?

+1

This actually makes more sense.

[ubunterooster]

Is there an itrek app for iphone? :lol:


You might want to: 1,make a youtube video showing trek at work.
2, have a donation link in the menu.
3, consider either a FFox rebrand/ addon.
4, make sure to make it debian compatible [many other debian based distros will also be able to use that]

[jeremykross]

+1

This actually makes more sense.

People keep indicating this, but I respectfully disagree. The thought had crossed my mind when I started the initial work, but I don't think I could've achieved the same level of richness with a browser plugin. Making a compelling experience was very important to me. Trek should be fun to use.

Further, I don't really see Trek as a browser, but more akin to something like IRC. The web is just the context for the chat. I don't want to replace Firefox at all.. One should open Trek when they're looking for a different kind of experience.

There are definitely advantages to the browser plugin..and if Trek catches on I or someone else could create a plugin link into the system from more traditional browsers, but I guarantee it'll be a watered down affair.

[jeremykross]

Is there an itrek app for iphone? :lol:


You might want to: 1,make a youtube video showing trek at work.
2, have a donation link in the menu.
3, consider either a FFox rebrand/ addon.
4, make sure to make it debian compatible [many other debian based distros will also be able to use that]

iPhone? No. If anything I think I'd do an Android edition before one for the iPhone.

thanks for the advice. You can see my go at a youtube video on the homepage, btw.

[jeremykross]

I dont mean popup ads, but rather selling your searches to google or yahoo, just like mozilla foundation does to finance firefox (they made $72M that way last year). No one is gonna make a fork to code that out, we like google search boxes :)

As for "the point", Point of releasing the source code is that others can verify whats going on in your code. There is quite a bit of privacy concern here (not too mention fears of malware, backdoors etc). You could make the sourcecode available, but not allowing distribution. Let people play around with the source on their machine, so they can test, suggest improvements, make ports to other platforms, etc, but have them submit those patches to you and you decide what goes in what doesnt.

Then again, it depends on your business model, but GPL-ing the code might make more sense. Look at Skype; finally they are about to opensource their client (or have already, havent kept up) so people can work on improving it -on linux especially. But even modified skype clients will still have to connect to skype's servers and provide their (also paying) services, so it really doesnt matter to skype what client you use. They are not serving ads anyway.

Excellent input. I'm always a bit off put by watered down open source licenses. But you're right, some code is better than no code.

As for skype, it always struck me as interesting they opted to opensource the client without the server. Wouldn't that make the server trivial to re-engineer? How'd they get around a bunch of clones popping up?

[chriskin]

People keep indicating this, but I respectfully disagree. The thought had crossed my mind when I started the initial work, but I don't think I could've achieved the same level of richness with a browser plugin. Making a compelling experience was very important to me. Trek should be fun to use.

Further, I don't really see Trek as a browser, but more akin to something like IRC. The web is just the context for the chat. I don't want to replace Firefox at all.. One should open Trek when they're looking for a different kind of experience.

There are definitely advantages to the browser plugin..and if Trek catches on I or someone else could create a plugin link into the system from more traditional browsers, but I guarantee it'll be a watered down affair.

people tend to like their actual browser and the in-browser chat to be on the same application.
my opinion is that , if you consider a plugin something that would limit your options , you should try making a fork of firefox - code is out there.

that way you get both the power of firefox's plugins and the power of the in-browser chat.

(if you don't see trek as a browser, why not make an irc client? :S)

[P4man]

P
There are definitely advantages to the browser plugin..and if Trek catches on I or someone else could create a plugin link into the system from more traditional browsers, but I guarantee it'll be a watered down affair.

Im not a dev, so what do i know, but looking at plugins like cooliris (http://www.cooliris.com/) there doesnt seem to be much limitation on how far you can push a plugin.

[alphaamanitin]

People keep indicating this, but I respectfully disagree. The thought had crossed my mind when I started the initial work, but I don't think I could've achieved the same level of richness with a browser plugin. Making a compelling experience was very important to me. Trek should be fun to use.

Further, I don't really see Trek as a browser, but more akin to something like IRC. The web is just the context for the chat. I don't want to replace Firefox at all.. One should open Trek when they're looking for a different kind of experience.

There are definitely advantages to the browser plugin..and if Trek catches on I or someone else could create a plugin link into the system from more traditional browsers, but I guarantee it'll be a watered down affair.


I can tell you I would never bother to install your Trek. I already have Firefox and do not want to give up all the add-ons and the like to install what sounds like a bundled browser/instant messenger. I think people tend to get set in their favorites, IE, Firefox, Chrome, and have no want to change, again. I know you don't see Trek as a browser but I think the vast majority of people will. I personally do not see the advantage of downloading and learning the settings and look of a new "browser" even if it allows me to chat with people. I think you may get people more interested in Trek if you make and add-on to firefox and a stand alone, that way people can try it out and if they like it and want to go to the full version they can make the move. Ultimately I think one problem is that people might not always want the chatting and other features and just was it to browse the internet, which they can already do.

Keep in mind that I am also not a social person and do not want to be bothered most of the time. I am sure there is diffenetly some people who would love constantly chatting with others.

AlphaA

[P4man]

As for skype, it always struck me as interesting they opted to opensource the client without the server. Wouldn't that make the server trivial to re-engineer? How'd they get around a bunch of clones popping up?

How are you gonna duplicate the server functionality? Skype doesnt make money on skype to skype calls or chat (something you can do on a gazillion other IMs), but on skype-out, skype-in. voice mail and similar services. You cant "duplicate" that even if you have the code, its not just software, its infrastructure and contracts with telco's.

Besides, specific to skype, I believe they would not opensource their core which contains the audio compression and network p2p algorithms I believe. They would just open up the GUI part and allow proper open API's to interact with their core.

If, say, a future version of pidgin taps in to that, why would skype care? If pidgin allows to make skype out calls through their API's, they still make the money and the user gets a better experience with a single UI for all his IM/chat/voice or one he likes better than Skype's, or that works better with another OS or soundserver or webcam or whatever. None of that is skype's core business, to them its a nuisance having to support all that, so opening that up, everyone wins.

Im not sure how much fo that would apply to your business case, but I can imagine you just could allow anyone to write a client for your server through a public API. Sure, someone could reverse engineer that and build a clone, but they can do that now too, without opensourcing anything.

[jeremykross]

How are you gonna duplicate the server functionality? Skype doesnt make money on skype to skype calls or chat (something you can do on a gazillion other IMs), but on skype-out, skype-in. voice mail and similar services. You cant "duplicate" that even if you have the code, its not just software, its infrastructure and contracts with telco's.


Yes, quite of course. Sorry, I don't use Skype. I knew that, just hadn't thought it through.

I don't have a similar luxury. As it stands, I'm most worried about building a community to make Trek viable. Without users, any other discussion is really null and void. To do this, I had envisioned a strong, stable, centralized foundation. I don't want it to splinter off into different providers...thinking on it now, perhaps it needs some kind of cross server interop so it can splinter in compatible ways.

I dunno. I'm way outside my element here.

[P4man]

I think you are unnecessarily or at least overly worried about people forking. I can grab firefox sourcecode and release it as P4fox. But who would download it ? No one, since I wouldnt nearly be as adept at maintaining it as mozilla.

There are some forks of mozilla for special purposes of course, but overall its minimal (swiftfox etc) That goes for nearly all opensource apps Im aware off, even the very succesful ones (firefox, MySQL, gimp,..) Forking is easy, maintaining the app afterwards and doing a better job than the original team, is not. Its usually hard enough to keep the original going with the original developers.


Anyway, to your post, I assumed it already was crossplatform and a single community. If not, thats the first thing to do IMHO. I also think the unifying factor is the server, community, the API;s. Not so much that everyone uses the exact same client. I could make Facebook overnight (well, not really, but imagine) but since I cant tap in to the Facebook community and their accounts, its rather pointless.

IOW, once you established a sizable community, the risk of forking or cloning becomes smaller automatically (and until then, no one would be interested in doing so anyway). Focus on making this work, making it known, and worry about the rest (including making money) later :)

[alphaamanitin]

I think you are unnecessarily or at least overly worried about people forking. I can grab firefox sourcecode and release it as P4fox. But who would download it ? No one, since I wouldnt nearly be as adept at maintaining it as mozilla.

There are some forks of mozilla for special purposes of course, but overall its minimal (swiftfox etc) That goes for nearly all opensource apps Im aware off, even the very succesful ones (firefox, MySQL, gimp,..) Forking is easy, maintaining the app afterwards and doing a better job than the original team, is not. Its usually hard enough to keep the original going with the original developers.


Anyway, to your post, I assumed it already was crossplatform and a single community. If not, thats the first thing to do IMHO. I also think the unifying factor is the server, community, the API;s. Not so much that everyone uses the exact same client. I could make Facebook overnight (well, not really, but imagine) but since I cant tap in to the Facebook community and their accounts, its rather pointless.

IOW, once you established a sizable community, the risk of forking or cloning becomes smaller automatically (and until then, no one would be interested in doing so anyway). Focus on making this work, making it known, and worry about the rest (including making money) later :)

Yeah, I think you should make a Firefox add-on first, see if it get's popular, and then worry about a full blown version and a business model.

[sudoer541]

My suggestion is... dont open source it, try to sell it and make money out of it!!!
It will be a good idea to have open source add-ons, but not the whole browser.
I think you are changing the way we browse the internet.

[ubunterooster]

It's bold, it's inventive, and the only reason I haven't tried it is that my computer is so barely holding together already and I don't want to add anything else.

I am interested, though.

[AllRadioisDead]

My suggestion is... dont open source it, try to sell it and make money out of it!!!
It will be a good idea to have open source add-ons, but not the whole browser.
I think you are changing the way we browse the internet.
Who's going to buy a web browser?

[earthpigg]

i like the idea, and ill give it a go once it is open source.

regarding monetization: open source the client with two licenses (BSD and Proprietary) sell advertising, and keep the server closed source.

[ssj6akshat]

I like it and I am going to feature it on my blog.Hope you OpenSource it.

[Penguin Guy]

Not presently. But I may very well open source it. I haven't quite figured out all of the angles on that. I'd like to get a feel for how much interest there is (both in the app, and its source) before I make a decision.
You should think twice before putting it under the GPL.

[drreed]

The best way to browse anything is with as little guidance from well-meaning helpers as possible. This sounds like an experiment in social engineering - count me out.:P

[ubunterooster]

:lol: It's a social engine that uses browsing to make it active. Makes complete sense.

[Frak]

This thread is funny already.


It dares post non-Free Software! BURN THE HERETIC, PURGE THE UNCLEAN!

:P

This.

I say keep it closed source. Nothing in this screams "make me open source". There are ump-teen other open source browsers, so people can do.

[Rasa1111]

The best way to browse anything is with as little guidance from well-meaning helpers as possible. This sounds like an experiment in social engineering - count me out.:P

now that i've let it sit,
& looked it over again...
you're right,
it does.
and all i use are forums anyway.. lol
thanks anyway op.:???:
:KS