Review my startup -- Entogo

11 points by bwhichard ↗ HN
Try it: http://entogo.com

Entogo allows you to quickly surf and search the web using keywords. You can use the global keywords or create your own keywords by signing up for an account. Entogo saves you time by making it easier to search sites you frequently visit.

Entogo will make use of existing affiliate programs to help drive revenue.

Please check out the site and let us know what you think.

Try it: http://entogo.com

15 comments

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I'm using Firefox 3.6, and when I type "amazon harry potter" into the awesome bar, I arrive at the destination in the same two-step process that Entogo promises in the "old vs. new" example on its homepage.

So ... why would I switch to Entogo?

Hi Jawns,

I am not sure how you have your Awesome Bar set up or if you already created an Amazon keyword in Firefox. If you did, then you are correct it would be the same in that instance.

The goal is to create lots of keywords on eEntogo so you don't have to in Firefox. You can also create the keywords on the Entogo site and access them anywhere.

Please try some of the other keywords as well. It will give you an idea of how it works beyond Amazon.

Thank you very much for trying it.

Chrome does this as well.

I just type in "az harry potter" and it searches amazon.

It was really easy to set up in the chrome preference panel.

I was pleased how easy it was in Chrome too. I made a flickr CC image search shortcut to make it easy to search for images to use on the blog.
that's a tough market to crack, but props for attempting!

i'll tell you from experience that affiliate revenue does not amount to much unless you have thousands & thousands of visitors.

what are example instances when i would use entogo over google, yahoo or bing?

I actually quite like this - the keywords and the ability to add your own is pretty cool.
The first thing that popped into my mind as a user is what about my privacy? Can you assure me that my data will not be seen or used in any other way than helping me out?
So you can do this in all modern browsers without installing a toolbar or jeopardising privacy. What's the benefit?
I think it's possible to do, but you need to differentiate yourself from browser keyword search and DuckDuckGo-like !bang searching more in order to get me to use it.

In Firefox (and I'm assuming other modern browsers) I can right-click on a search field to make it a keyword, and then do essentially (as far as I can tell, at least) the same thing as you're doing.

DuckDuckGo makes this easier for me because I can just use its !bang search syntax (http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html) to do the same thing. I now much prefer using DDG's method over manual keyword searches since I don't have to set them up and they work on all of the computers I use.

I understand that you having the keywords all set up already is a convenience, but (at least for someone who already uses things that do this) I think that the added value is not immediately obvious.

I don't understand this at all. Especially not installing a browser toolbar.

I competed in a "business plan competition" called Venture Cup here in Sweden a few years ago (it didn't give me much, it's very focused on business plan and not so focused on actually doing, but it was started by McKinsey so what can you expect...) and one of the competing teams did pretty much what you're doing. I didn't get it then (back then, Epiphany had this and no other browsers that I knew of, but it was a pretty obvious browser addition) and I don't get it now.

Nowadays, I don't even bother adding keywords to the browser since Google directs me to the correct page anyway when searching for "amazon|wiki|ebay something" directly in the address bar.

The team that did that (or at least some of them) went on to do better things and created SoundCloud so I have my hopes for you too!

I don't think this is really a viable startup. There are so many ways to do exactly that, and in lots of the cases they're better. You can do that with other browser plugins, you can do that with chrome automagically, and there also Quicksilver and Alfred (this is the one I use) type of quick launch app that integrate this. I honestly don't want to have to install anything on my browser when it does it already out of the box and for added speed and productivity it's also hooked into my application launcher. And lets not even go into the profitability part! If you're planning on doing it as a hobby, I reckon I'd rather do something a bit more unique. If you're planning on doing this for money, how the hell are you going to monetize this, specially with a customer base thats already broken into a gazillion little niches?
I like the fact that you executed and completed, that's more than most people do.

But. What problem is this solving?