Introduction to the Protopage

Protopage is a London based, internet start-up company, with two trademarks registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office. One of the trademarks is for Protopage, and the other is for ONETAB Goods and Services. 

Via a search of the Wayback Machine, the domain name Protopage.com was registered in 2001. The site did not officially come online until 2005. The sole proprietor of Protopage.com is Andre Parrie, who at the age of 25 founded the company. Currently, it only has two employees listed: Andre Parrie, and Robin Parrie. The website offers an easy way to create a homepage that you can take with you; it offers subscription to RSS feeds, in addition to hundreds of widgets which allow you to customize your page with games, comics, music, sports and many other subjects. 

In this day and age, it is surprising to be able to fly under the radar, but that is exactly what Protopage has done. While Protopage has a presence on Twitter, the tweets are not updated frequently, but when they are, it is to address updates about the page, or most recently, to let people know that Protopage.com is an option for those who are looking for a replacement for iGoogle. 

Initially, when Protopage first came on scene, there were numerous news outlets which featured the page citing its use of AJAX as an attractive feature. Market Wired, in an article from August of 2005, has quoted the founder as saying "AJAX turns a web page into putty. We're getting a taste of what the web will become." 

For those of us unfamiliar with AJAX, w3schools provides a great overview: 

What is AJAX?
AJAX = Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.
[It] is a technique for creating fast and dynamic web pages.
[It] allows web pages to be updated asynchronously by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes. This means that it is possible to update parts of a web page, without reloading the whole page.
Classic web pages, (which do not use AJAX) must reload the entire page if the content should change.
Examples of applications using AJAX: Google Maps, Gmail, Youtube, and Facebook tabs.

Ajax allows the customization that Protopage users adore. 

Protopage has various features that can easily be edited or deleted to create a home page that is reflective of one's individual taste and interests. Boxes containing feeds can be resized and reordered. It is a simpler way to create an individual webpage. The site also allows you to adjust your settings for private or public, for the whole page, or you can use the tabs to create specialized content that you would like to share.