Webnotes contacted me about 2 weeks ago to beta test their software. Since I work in an educational setting, and spend a lot of time doing research, copying URL’s to a text file, and then emailing them or dumping them into a CMS system, I wanted to try this one out. There is nothing worse than having to search through e-mail looking for a link you know that someone sent you, but you cannot find it. Products that solve that problem are gold, and Webnotes is just such a product.
Webnotes did not disappoint at all, if anything, information sharing for research becomes noticeably easier when using their software. The key to that is you can collect what you need to collect as you go through what you are researching, and do not have to worry about cutting and pasting links or highlights. The sticky pad function is also great because those carry over as well when sharing out the information. You get the link, a highlight, and a sticky note all being sent up as one package to Webnotes, which carries through on the export as PDF or e-mail file that you can use or send to people when you are done.
Over the last week, Webnotes has shown itself to be applicable and valuable in the university setting, as well as in other settings. It made the sharing of research notes, and other notes in a collaborative document so much easier than raw e-mail and word which we have been using before. By being able to publish the results out to a PDF that could be shared or dumped into our CMS system the software showed a high value in building out a collaborative document.
I could even use this to ask which car I should get next, by researching the car I wanted and then sending the links on to someone else without having to do much of anything on my part to make it happen. Emailing directly from the Webnotes page is another useful option to have.
I have a movie of us using the product, but still have to edit it, but wanted to get this out before I waited too much longer. This is a great software package, and right now in beta, so you have to hook up your invites, I used all mine at work for our experiment on how to use this and share it. There are a couple of things that would make this more fun, or stronger, and there were some issues with copyright protected pages (both were sent on to Webnotes, one was a problem in the code when looking at a copyrighted page).
For right now though this is one awesome tool to be playing around with, and it is a very strong product, even though they call it beta, it is ready for prime time. It is even worth buying, that is how cool Webnotes is.
Tags: Webnotes, product, research, academics, cms, use, car shopping, fun, excellent
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Brat.
Have you heard of Evernote? Much simpler, more powerful and is cross platform.
@louis, sometimes,
I’d like to invite you to try out Diigo.
IMHO, It is more robust, having been in use by tens of thousands users, and much more powerful as a research tool, in addition to its rich social features.
In short, it does everything webnotes does and more.
I still doesnt get why this tool is hyped and described as “serious tool for researchers” etc. really. What it does it to save highlighted text in “notes” not editable. No formatting, no pictures. No tagging. Just som txt and URL saved in one block.
Have you guys tried features like scrapbook, or the serious tool Zotero? Its much better for referenche work, especially Zotero. Or maybe Diigo?
I find the sponsored tech-blogs (mashable, readwritweb and more) acting like lemmings, one start the hype and everyone follows without a gram of critical thinking, repeating like parrots what the first one said. Its all this “for proffesional researchers”.. Hello! What the h*ll are you talking about? This is a very simple tool saving URL and some highlighted text, not able to edit or tag or anything else that serious researchers need.
I think the leading tech-blogs have to straighten up to keep people trusting what they write. As it is now, there is only not substancially wrong but also ridiculos to call Webnotes a tool for university students or researchers, when you have Zotero, scrapbook, Diigo, Evernote who is much better.