Let's browse: a collaborative browsing agent

Web browsing, like most of today's desktop applications, is usually a solit ary activity. Other forms of media, such as watching television, are often done by groups of people, such as families or friends. What would it be lik e to do collaborative Web browsing? Could the computer provide assistance t o group browsing by trying to help find mutual interests among the particip ants? Let's Browse is an experiment in building an agent to assist a group of people in browsing, by suggesting new material likely to be of common in terest. It is built as an extension to the single user Web browsing agent L etizia. Let's Browse features automatic detection of the presence of users, automated "channel surfing" browsing, and dynamic display of the user prof iles and explanation of recommendations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.