An Internet Difference Engine and its applications

Finding interesting information on the the Internet is difficult. Keeping up-to-date on this information requires a mechanism to determine when it has changed and how it has changed. The AT&T Internet Difference Engine (AIDE) is a system that detects and displays changes to pages on the World Wide Web. A web tracking tool finds when pages have changed. A new tool called HtmlDiff displays those changes by determining the differences between two HTML pages and creating a new HTML page summarizing them. We describe the major components of the Internet Difference Engine, and then show how it has been applied to a variety of Web applications, including collaborative editing environments and automated "What's New?" reports.