Please post a followup in your blog if you find a suitable substitute for MyWay. I’ve been trying to find another news aggregator that is as simple as MyWay, but I haven’t found it yet.
Comment by Michaelon 06/06/08 at 08:55 AM
MyWay.com Drops Own Portfolio For Something That Doesn’t Work From Scottrade
By Mike Maddaloni on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 08:58 AM with 11 comments
MyWay.com, or MyWay for short, is a Web-based personal portal. It was launched several years ago and later became part of Barry Diller’s Internet empire. When it was launched, it competed head-to-head with MyYahoo! The idea was MyWay would not serve pop-up advertising as MyYahoo! was starting to do. This attracted me to the service and I have used it as my home page since, even though its feature set has remained stagnant.
That set of features took a hit this week with the shutdown of its stock portfolio feature. I found out about this the hard way – I simply noticed it was gone. In its place was a Flash widget-like box, as shown below:
I looked around my MyWay page and clicked the “my portfolio” link at the top of the page. There was my list of stock tickers, with this message:
(its text - We are sorry. As of June 1st, My Way will no longer be supporting the Portfolio feature. We apologize for the inconvenience. Click here for more information about the new My Way Money page. - The My Way Team)
After clicking on the message (there was not a visible link) I got this message:
(its text - My Way is pleased to announce that we will be collaborating with Scottrade, one of the leading online brokerage firms and market research providers, on our new Money channel. Many of the features on the My Way Money page will now redirect to charts, graphs and information provided by Scottrade. As of June 1st, however, we will no longer be able to support the Portfolio feature. We are confident that our new and exciting partnership with Scottrade will provide you with convenient access to some of the most accurate, detailed and useful financial tools available on the Web. - The My Way Team)
Not knowing what to do, I tried to enter stock ticker but nothing showed up. Instead, ironically, pop-up windows with pages from Scottrade’s Web site appeared after a few minutes. One was of its home page, the other a page to look up tickers, which did not work. I was using Firefox 2 and did not try it in another browser.
That was yesterday, and today, the Flash widget is gone, and in its place is this message:
(its text - Sorry – We're experiencing technical difficulties with Scottrade Stock Watchlist. We are currently looking into it. Please check back soon.)
It’s one thing if MyWay decided to partner with Scottrade, but do it right! Inform people of the change, don’t just remove it and hope people will find a link to it (I never use any other portfolio features of MyWay). As Scottrade is guided by all kinds of SEC regulations, do I have to open a Scottrade account now? And what about a migration of my tickers, or do I have to re-enter them? I only have a few so it would not take too long, but I need to know either way.
Perhaps its time to move on and find a replacement service – maybe iGoogle or even look at MyYahoo! again. MyWay surely isn’t doing it the way I would. And how about the irony of my fortune, displayed below the widget?
Business • Technology • (11) Comments • PermalinkComments
Comment by Michaelon 06/06/08 at 08:55 AM
Hi Michael - Thanks for stopping by! I will definitely follow-up on this, and please come back if you find something as well!
mp/m
Comment by Mike, Great story about the MyWay Portfolio Mgr. The Scottrade gadget is a joke. Its nothing more than a Scottrade ad, with an individual stock quoter. There are hundreds of them on the net. The Portfolio Manager was special, because it tracked “your” portfolio’s performance, not just daily quotes. Very sad that MyWay chose to take a step backwards. I have tried to contact someone at MyWay, but it apprears impossible to find a customer service email address.
Comment by Darryl Staskowskion 06/12/08 at 12:39 PM
Hi Darryl - I agree. I have been experimenting with iGoogle and they have a couple of decent portfolio manager gadgets, and I almost have an iGoogle page looking like my MyWay page.
This may be the way I go… stay tuned…
mp/m
I’m also moving to iGoogle. Pageflakes was pretty promising, but I think iGoogle will work better for me.
Comment by Michaelon 06/12/08 at 01:10 PM
Mike,
Just this week I was migrating from “My Yahoo” back to MyWay as I was frustrated with the small Font size on the latest My Yahoo page (the big Advertising BLOCK was also annoying). I also checked a bunch of the other Pages such as IGoogle (really small fonts), PageFlacks and NetView (again - small fonts!) - so MyWay is still looking like the best choice to me.
So - I tried to customize the StockWatch by “importing my portfolio from MyYahoo” - and of course it doesn’t work! NOW I KNOW WHY! Some updated pages from MyWay indicating that the portfolio stuff is no longer supported would be nice.
My main argument with the Scott Trade page is that I can’t seem to increase the size of it? It only shows me a few stocks at a time and I’ll need to scroll down. Anybody figure out a way around this?
So - if anyone does find a good site that has readable font size (ok - I’m 49, use bifocal contacts - but lets go for something larger than 8 point TYPE on these pages!), and nice features, please let us all know!
-Werner
Comment by Werner Hoehenriederon 06/18/08 at 01:57 PM
Hi Werner, and all - stay tuned, and I will be writing about my next choice!
mp/m
Werner: consider using the new Firefox 3.0 browser. It has a permanent per-site zoom setting (either full page zoom or text-only zoom). It’s not perfect for everything; some iGoogle elements get cut off with text zoom, for instance. But, it might help you with font legibility.
Comment by Michaelon 06/19/08 at 08:39 AM
Michael: I plan to give FireFox 3.0 a try, but I’m a long term OPERA user - so I don’t know if I’ll switch. Opera also makes it easy to Zoom - but I don’t believe they have a “text zoom” - which is interesting.
As you point out though, Zooming certainly helps - but in general it also sort of “distorts” the pages a bit (and of course ZOOMs any advertising too).
I appreciate the advise though and look forward to any other info / comments.
-Werner
Comment by Werneron 06/19/08 at 01:35 PM
Mike,
Are you ready to talk about your “next choice” yet?
Any info is appreciated (I haven’t seen any improvements in MyWay - so I doubt there will be any on that front).
Thanks,
Werner
Quote: “Hi Werner, and all - stay tuned, and I will be writing about my next choice!
mp/m”
Comment by Werneron 07/23/08 at 05:02 PM
Hi Werner - I did, and you can read it here:
http://www.thehotiron.com/index.php/site/comments/goodbye_mywaycom_hello_igoogle/
Hope it helps, and let me know what your final move is as well!
mp/m
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