What’s the difference between the three ways to find info via MousePortal.com?
You see them there on the front page, those smug little red arrows. Just taunting you with three similar yet different descriptive names… “Search,” “Browse,” and “Locate.” If you looked up any one of those words in a thesaurus, the other two would be right there, smiling back at you. But there’s gotta be a difference between them. Otherwise why would they all three be there?
All shall be revealed here. Each of them is pretty similar to the others. But there is a difference, and knowing what that difference is will make it a lot easier to find what you were looking for when you came to MousePortal. But rather than giving you a bunch of existential horse manure, I’ll give you three examples that best explain these functions.
1) “Search.” This is what you’ll probably use most of the time if you’re looking for information about WDW. It is most similar to the way people use the popular “Google” (trademarked, copyrighted, please don’t sue us) brand search engine. Heck, the whole thing is powered by Google Custom Search anyway. So, let’s say you’re looking for all the info you can find on the Jungle Cruise attraction at WDW. Type in “Jungle Cruise” in the search box, and you’ll get a wonderful list of links to Jungle Cruise articles posted on more than 100 WDW fan websites.
2) “Browse.” This is what’s best to use if you’re looking to discover neat Disney-related websites that you may have never visited before. Think of this as the way the Yellow Pages (trademarked, copyrighted, please don’t sue us) telephone directory works. You browse through the category you’re interested in until something catches your eye. Let’s say you love reading Disney-related blogs. Go to the “unofficial, fan-based sites” category, and then into the “blogs” subcategory. You’ll get a list of plenty of Disney-related blogs that you can visit. And remember that since you are not the first to travel this way (nor shall you be the last), you can rate the sites so others will know how good they are.
3) “Locate.” This is geared toward people who kind of remember a site they think they heard about or maybe forgot the web address for — it scours our Directory (see number #2 above) for links that match what you are looking for. Think of this as the way most people use the popular Yahoo! (trademarked, copyrighted, please don’t sue us) brand search engine. You remember that there’s an awesome WDW-related website called “All Ears,” but for the life of you, you can’t remember what the web address was. Just type “All Ears” into the “locate” box, and you’ll get a link to the Deb Wills’ awesome site. By the way, the “locate” feature also browses our descriptions of the sites in our directory, so if you don’t even remember the name of Deb Wills’ site, you can still find it by typing in her name.
So there ya go, the three different ways to access the Disney universe via MousePortal.com — of course, there’s more to MousePortal than that. You can also glance through our Feature Articles, the WDW Weather Center, and the Disney in the News section.
