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The little browser within the browser

Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Michael Kanellos is editor at large at CNET News.com, where he covers hardware, research and development, start-ups and the tech industry overseas.
Michael Kanellos

Scott Matthews, CEO and sole employee of Bitty Browser, was having a pretty good afternoon Monday at PC Forum in Carlsbad, Calif. As he would demonstrate his software to a group of people, one or two of them would invariably say, "How come no one has thought of his before?"

Bitty Browser, the product, is essentially a browser within a browser. On a typical PC screen, its browser window is about three by three inches. When run on a news site, it can be used to play videos or conduct searches. The advantage is that people don't have to switch away from the page they're on. In a sense, it gives one the ability to look at two pages at the same time because one of the pages fits in a square within the larger one.

Matthews right now is trying to encourage Web sites to use the technology. He has yet to figure out how to commercialize the software: It could be sold as a service or as discrete server software. Roughly 30,000 Web pages now include a bitty browser, according to Matthews.

The name was inspired by his 18-month-old daughter. "I've had words like 'itty' and 'bitty' on the mind lately," he said.