Marc Fest - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Marc Fest is a German-American communications professional, programmer and entrepreneur. He is notable as the creator of multiple web-based information management tools and a pioneer in this technology. He is a former journalist and self-taught programmer. His most recognized achievement is originating the concept known as "metabrowsing

Metabrowsing

With the popularization of the Internet in the late 1990s, different approaches to browsing Web-based information emerged as alternatives to the standard Web browser. According to LexisNexis the term "metabrowsing" began popping up in mainstream media in March 2000...

" through his creation of Quickbrowse.com

Quickbrowse

Quickbrowse is a Web-based subscription service that enables users to browse multiple Web pages more quickly by combining them vertically into a single Web page. It was one of the early metabrowsing services.-History:...

in 1999. This is a Web-based subscription service that enables users to browse multiple web pages by combining them vertically into a single web page. This concept was an outgrowth of a tool which Fest had conceived as an aid to his journalistic research.

Between 1990 and 1999 Marc Fest worked for the publications Berliner Zeitung

Berliner Zeitung

The Berliner Zeitung, founded in 1945, is a German center-left daily newspaper based in Berlin, published by Berliner Verlag. It is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since unification. In 2003, the Berliner was Berlin's largest subscription newspaper—the weekend...

(1996–1999), die tageszeitung

Die tageszeitung

die tageszeitung , was founded in 1978 in Berlin. It is a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper which is administrated by a workers' self-management...

(1990 to 1995) and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only major daily newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and its suburbs. The AJC, as it is called, is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the result of the merger between The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta...

(1993) as part of a Arthur F. Burns

Arthur F. Burns

Arthur Frank Burns was an American economist. He served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1970 to 1978.- Career :...

Journalism Fellowship.http://www.icfj.org/files/burnssummer04.pdf At a party he mentioned his invention to financial writer Andrew Tobias

Andrew Tobias

Andrew Tobias is an American journalist, author, and columnist. His main body of work is on investment, but he has also written on politics, insurance, and other topics. Since 1999, he has been the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee.-Biography:Tobias graduated from Harvard College in...

, who began the process of providing seed money for what eventually became Quickbrowse. Fest is vice president of communications for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is an American private, non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts....

. He is a dual Germany/United States citizen.

Quickbrowse

Quickbrowse received wide media coverage during the height of the Dot-com bubble

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...

. It was quickly followed by other metabrowsers such as Octopus.com (backed by Netscape

Netscape

Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...

founder Marc Andreesen), Onepage.com (backed by Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

co-founder Paul Allen

Paul Allen

Paul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates...

), iHarvest.com, Katiesoft.com and Calltheshots.com - all of which have ceased to operate as metabrowsers. Octopus received more than $11.4 million in venture capital funding from Redpoint Ventures

Redpoint Ventures

Redpoint Ventures is a prominent venture capital firm focused on investments in early stage technology companies. The firm's partners include Allen Beasley, Jeff Brody, Satish Dharmaraj, Tom Dyal, Tim Haley, Brad Jones, Nety Krishna, Chris Moore, Lars Pedersen, Scott Raney, John Walecka, Geoff...

. Onepage received $25 million in venture capital funding. Quickbrowse received only a half-million dollars in angel funding; however, it is the only one of the original Web-based metabrowsers still operating today. Quickbrowse backers included its lead investor, Geocities.com founder David Bohnett, the financial writer Andrew Tobias

Andrew Tobias

and CBS hurricane expert Bryan Norcross

Bryan Norcross

Bryan Norcross is a former television meteorologist and hurricane specialist for WFOR-TV and the chief hurricane analyst for CBS News in New York...

Other Internet activities

Fest has created additional Web-based services, such as Onlinehomebase.com (information management), Magicminder.com (contact management), Trackle.com (Web page content monitoring), SimplyAnnual.com (yearly email reminders), and myHerald.com, an experimental online edition of the Miami Herald based on metabrowsing

Metabrowsing

(discontinued). He is also the creator of Aftersunrise.com, a video blog of South Beach

South Beach

South Beach, also nicknamed SoBe, is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach, Florida, United States. It is the area south of Indian Creek and encompasses roughly the southernmost 23 blocks of the main barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.This area was the first...

sunrises and of CommunicationTricks.com, a blog about communication tactics.

External links

Publications by Fest

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