Web Surfing With The Wii

If you have a Wii, you've probably surfed the web using the Opera-based Internet Channel. Surfing the Web on the Wii reminds me of WebTV, except better. It's so easy to navigate pages too. All you have to do is enter the URL of your favorite website, and move the controller up, down, left or right while holding the B Button to scroll through the page. You can also use the control pad if you don't want to point to the screen. The text is hard to read, so you'll want to zoom in by pressing the plus or minus buttons on the Wiimote. If you don't want to type individual URLs every time, bookmark the site by adding it to your favorites.

Surfing the web is a breeze, but an easier way to do this is by setting up an RSS reader. To do this you must set up an account with a reader like My Yahoo! or Google Reader. Once you've registered, you'll have to subscribe to feeds. I suggest you do this from your computer first to save time. Google recently released a Wii-friendly Google Reader to take full advantage of the buttons on your Wiimote. The special version displays bigger fonts, and lets you browse through feeds effortlessly. You can see a video of the interface here. I was able to surf feeds on My Yahoo! just fine, and even added a few more.

My favorite pastime is using the Wii to check out YouTube videos on the big screen TV. I've tried other websites with video, but for some reason the video player doesn't always work. For example, I tried viewing shows on ABC, but I got error messages regarding the player. I hope they fix this soon, so I we can watch missed shows.

Several other news oriented Wii channels are available, such as the Forecast Channel that gives users regular weather updates, and the News Channel to provide you with the latest news headlines around the world. It's a nice way to take breaks between games, and give your arm a rest.

I hear more channels are in the works, so I'll keep you posted. Let me know in the comments below of any sites you visit from your Wii.