I think it would be fair to say that Diigo is the most popular and mature web annotation tool on the market today. With over half a million registered users, It has been continuously refined over the past three years.
So it would be helpful to compare any new entrant in the space to Diigo. If webnotes is aiming at serious web surfers, then I must say that side-by-side comparisons would show that Diigo is a much more powerful (and mature) tool. For example, Diigo provides rich tagging capability as well as folders for better information organization, and group annotation for better collaboration. Diigo automatically caches the page so it is always available to you. Diigo allows you to search the full-text of your collections, or just within your highlights. Diigo allows you to easily extract your research findings or publish them to blogs .....
One could argue that webnotes' is simpler because of less features. Well, if you want real productivity, I should like to argue that it just falls far short of what Diigo enables. In addition, Diigo's rich functionality has been designed with painstaking care so that if you will be completely comfortable just using a subset of the features to begin with. For tools that are really simple, I would say delicious and google notebooks are hard to beat.
Diigo team continues to dedicate itself to make Diigo the best tool for research productivity and knowledge sharing. (In the meantime, other web annotation tools such as fleck, i-lighter, jump knowledge, trailfire, etc have essentially stopped development or simply shut-down, to the best of my knowledge. )
Wade, CEO, Diigo
· 12 months ago
I think it would be fair to say that Diigo is the most popular and mature web annotation tool on the market today. With over half a million registered users, It has been continuously refined over the past three years.
----------------
So it would be helpful to compare any new entrant in the space to Diigo. If webnotes is aiming at serious web surfers, then I must say that side-by-side comparisons would show that Diigo is a much more powerful (and mature) tool. For example, Diigo provides rich tagging capability as well as folders for better information organization, and group annotation for better collaboration. Diigo automatically caches the page so it is always available to you. Diigo allows you to search the full-text of your collections, or just within your highlights. Diigo allows you to easily extract your research findings or publish them to blogs ......
--------------
One could argue that webnotes' is simpler because of less features. Well, if you want real productivity, I should like to argue that it just falls far short of what Diigo enables. In addition, Diigo's rich functionality has been designed with painstaking care so that if you will be completely comfortable just using a subset of the features to begin with. For tools that are really simple, I would say delicious and google notebooks are hard to beat.
-------------
Diigo team continues to dedicate itself to make Diigo the best tool for research productivity and knowledge sharing. (In the meantime, other web annotation tools such as fleck, i-lighter, jump knowledge, trailfire, etc have essentially stopped development or simply shut-down, to the best of my knowledge. )
Ryan Damico, CEO, WebNotes
· 12 months ago
We really appreciate Wade's comments on Mashable, Read Write Web, LouisGray.com, etc. At WebNotes, we have the utmost respect for Diigo and the social annotation tools they provide. They have a great product for consumers interested in social annotation and facilitate a wonderful intermediary service for those who wish to discuss articles and build communities around their annotations. We certainly wish them the best of luck as the endeavor to create greater value for their communities.
Before I begin my response to Wade's assertions, we should first realize that the annotation market is largely untapped. Web researchers make up far greater numbers than Diigo's 500k users, or the dwindling audiences of the other social annotation sites. A recent survey by Forbes and Gartner noted that over 60% of C-level executives got a majority of the information on which they base their decisions from the internet. Millions of researchers are currently surfing the web without a solution to fit their needs. Part of the problem is that they haven't yet found the right solution; the other part is that they haven't yet been educated about a better way to research. Here at WebNotes, we strongly believe that all annotation sites can greatly expand our respective market shares by increasing the education available to the public.
That said, we agree completely with Wade and believe that everyone should compare both Diigo and WebNotes. Use both and pick whichever one resonates with you. We are confident in our design choices and feel that there is most certainly value in simplicity, intuitive interfaces and ease of use. So how about it bloggers? Which do you prefer? Research analysts should do the same. Spread the word to your colleagues. Anyone who has ever needed to research online should view this as the perfect time to learn a better way to complete such a task.
Most of all, let us know what you like, what you need and what you hate. We are trying to make a product that is perfect for you and the louder you are, the better our products become.
Thanks for your help! Ryan Damico
Jared
· 12 months ago
Wow, this app does not work at all!
Why dont these companies do more extensive testing before releasing a product?? They have the public do their work by testing it for them, and then giving them negative publicity when it doesnt work.
The saying 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' doesnt really apply to technology.
Alex
· 12 months ago
Jared, thanks so much for your help in tracking down that bug! We are in the midst of fixing that now and it should be available a short timeframe.
For those of you that are interested, Jared is using a Chrome derivative called Iron. This browser wasn't being accounted for in our system and was returning a bizarre error message. For those of you using Iron, WebNotes won't work yet, but hopefully soon
Thanks for the feedback!
Alex
· 12 months ago
Jared and interested others,
We have now added Iron compatibility! If you'd like to use this browser, you can now use WebNotes as well!
I had never heard of Diigo, so I didn't review that service. But now that I've heard of it I think I have another blog post coming up : ).
If you can't get a hold of an invite to WebNotes, feel free to leave a comment on the above link and I'll make sure to send you one.
rot
· 12 months ago
Why does every tech-blog hype all new tools without a gram of critical thinking?
This tool IS just another tool for hightlighting text (not links, not pictures) and save the textblock and an URL in a folder. Thats it.
It doesnt handle notetaking, cant tag, cant handle formatted text with pictures - and I wouldnt call it "notes" - you cant edit your highlighted text from the webinterface. Cant save clips. Its just primitive.
So I still have to dream about an online notetaking/research tool that combines social bookmarking with research capabilities (like them in Zotero or Scrapbook for firefox) (and no, Diigo is NOT the ansver to that)
rot
· 12 months ago
(and no, since I installed the toolbar yesterday, and uninstalled it today, it hasnt worked bery well. it could onlye save short portions of text, and bugs out if the text is like bigger than 200 words, and also bugs out if you dare to try to save a text including a picture)
But even if the bugs is fixed I cant see anything in this webservice that offers something new or useful. Unfortunatly.
Rob Steenwyk
· 12 months ago
Well rot, I had never come across a similar service myself. And I like it, and I use it. Sorry if I'm not negative about it, but I gave my honest opinion.
rot
· 11 months ago
Good for you, that you liked it. Myself I have a need for saving formatted text, but also to edit the notes, anmd urls, I save. I also like to have the opinion to sort and save information in a variety of ways. To Tag it. Nothing of this is offered in Webnotes. WebNotes is not capable of taking notes, or for any advanced use. What it does is to save small snips of highlighted text in a outliner-structure attached to a url. It is Some kind of simpe bookmarking tool with categories instead of tags.
And thats ok! The web have room for both simple and more advanced services.
But I react to and dont understand is why this webservice is described as an "advanced tool for proffesional researchers" or for the "serious surfers" both on Readwriteweb and mashable?
Surem I know no of theese blogs is independent of course, they are sponsored, but I do not think that the descriptions shall not be too far-out from reality.
As I see there is only one free "professional" research tool alternative on the market today, and that is Zotero addon to firefox. But its lacks in some online-feautures unfortunatly. I also think Scrapbook, Evernote and Diigo shall be mentioned. Myself I use some of theese tools in combinations to handle my research tool needs.
rot
· 11 months ago
Some corrections "but I do not think that the descriptions shall not be too far-out from reality." = "but I dont like that their descriptions is too far from reality. That makes you stop trusting their articles"
Brandon
· 11 months ago
I got a beta invite, installed it, have been trying it out with no problems. And while Diigo is obviously more comprehensive, why is that automatically better for all purposes? What if I prefer Delicious for bookmarking...and Evernote for detailed note-taking?
What I prefer about WebNotes is that it's LESS overwhelming, in terms of features. I can highlight, I can add a sticky note, I can share. I can store things in separate folders.
I'm also not sure I want my entire online "system" wrapped up into one tool, I like tools that do a few things really well...with an interface that makes more sense to me.
kitesurf
· 8 months ago
I am interested to have a go at it, is there anyone to invite? thanks in advance.
Dr. Thomas Ho
· 6 months ago
WebNotes Pro launched today and it's STILL a "far cry" from @Diigo BUT PDF annotation is nice
All Comments
So it would be helpful to compare any new entrant in the space to Diigo. If webnotes is aiming at serious web surfers, then I must say that side-by-side comparisons would show that Diigo is a much more powerful (and mature) tool. For example, Diigo provides rich tagging capability as well as folders for better information organization, and group annotation for better collaboration. Diigo automatically caches the page so it is always available to you. Diigo allows you to search the full-text of your collections, or just within your highlights. Diigo allows you to easily extract your research findings or publish them to blogs .....
One could argue that webnotes' is simpler because of less features. Well, if you want real productivity, I should like to argue that it just falls far short of what Diigo enables. In addition, Diigo's rich functionality has been designed with painstaking care so that if you will be completely comfortable just using a subset of the features to begin with. For tools that are really simple, I would say delicious and google notebooks are hard to beat.
Diigo team continues to dedicate itself to make Diigo the best tool for research productivity and knowledge sharing. (In the meantime, other web annotation tools such as fleck, i-lighter, jump knowledge, trailfire, etc have essentially stopped development or simply shut-down, to the best of my knowledge. )
----------------
So it would be helpful to compare any new entrant in the space to Diigo. If webnotes is aiming at serious web surfers, then I must say that side-by-side comparisons would show that Diigo is a much more powerful (and mature) tool. For example, Diigo provides rich tagging capability as well as folders for better information organization, and group annotation for better collaboration. Diigo automatically caches the page so it is always available to you. Diigo allows you to search the full-text of your collections, or just within your highlights. Diigo allows you to easily extract your research findings or publish them to blogs ......
--------------
One could argue that webnotes' is simpler because of less features. Well, if you want real productivity, I should like to argue that it just falls far short of what Diigo enables. In addition, Diigo's rich functionality has been designed with painstaking care so that if you will be completely comfortable just using a subset of the features to begin with. For tools that are really simple, I would say delicious and google notebooks are hard to beat.
-------------
Diigo team continues to dedicate itself to make Diigo the best tool for research productivity and knowledge sharing. (In the meantime, other web annotation tools such as fleck, i-lighter, jump knowledge, trailfire, etc have essentially stopped development or simply shut-down, to the best of my knowledge. )
Before I begin my response to Wade's assertions, we should first realize that the annotation market is largely untapped. Web researchers make up far greater numbers than Diigo's 500k users, or the dwindling audiences of the other social annotation sites. A recent survey by Forbes and Gartner noted that over 60% of C-level executives got a majority of the information on which they base their decisions from the internet. Millions of researchers are currently surfing the web without a solution to fit their needs. Part of the problem is that they haven't yet found the right solution; the other part is that they haven't yet been educated about a better way to research. Here at WebNotes, we strongly believe that all annotation sites can greatly expand our respective market shares by increasing the education available to the public.
That said, we agree completely with Wade and believe that everyone should compare both Diigo and WebNotes. Use both and pick whichever one resonates with you. We are confident in our design choices and feel that there is most certainly value in simplicity, intuitive interfaces and ease of use. So how about it bloggers? Which do you prefer? Research analysts should do the same. Spread the word to your colleagues. Anyone who has ever needed to research online should view this as the perfect time to learn a better way to complete such a task.
Most of all, let us know what you like, what you need and what you hate. We are trying to make a product that is perfect for you and the louder you are, the better our products become.
Thanks for your help!
Ryan Damico
Why dont these companies do more extensive testing before releasing a product?? They have the public do their work by testing it for them, and then giving them negative publicity when it doesnt work.
The saying 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' doesnt really apply to technology.
For those of you that are interested, Jared is using a Chrome derivative called Iron. This browser wasn't being accounted for in our system and was returning a bizarre error message. For those of you using Iron, WebNotes won't work yet, but hopefully soon
Thanks for the feedback!
We have now added Iron compatibility! If you'd like to use this browser, you can now use WebNotes as well!
Thanks everyone, and keep the feedback coming.
Lets try this thing out.
I had never heard of Diigo, so I didn't review that service. But now that I've heard of it I think I have another blog post coming up : ).
If you can't get a hold of an invite to WebNotes, feel free to leave a comment on the above link and I'll make sure to send you one.
This tool IS just another tool for hightlighting text (not links, not pictures) and save the textblock and an URL in a folder. Thats it.
It doesnt handle notetaking, cant tag, cant handle formatted text with pictures - and I wouldnt call it "notes" - you cant edit your highlighted text from the webinterface. Cant save clips. Its just primitive.
So I still have to dream about an online notetaking/research tool that combines social bookmarking with research capabilities (like them in Zotero or Scrapbook for firefox) (and no, Diigo is NOT the ansver to that)
But even if the bugs is fixed I cant see anything in this webservice that offers something new or useful. Unfortunatly.
And thats ok! The web have room for both simple and more advanced services.
But I react to and dont understand is why this webservice is described as an "advanced tool for proffesional researchers" or for the "serious surfers" both on Readwriteweb and mashable?
Surem I know no of theese blogs is independent of course, they are sponsored, but I do not think that the descriptions shall not be too far-out from reality.
As I see there is only one free "professional" research tool alternative on the market today, and that is Zotero addon to firefox. But its lacks in some online-feautures unfortunatly. I also think Scrapbook, Evernote and Diigo shall be mentioned. Myself I use some of theese tools in combinations to handle my research tool needs.
What I prefer about WebNotes is that it's LESS overwhelming, in terms of features. I can highlight, I can add a sticky note, I can share. I can store things in separate folders.
I'm also not sure I want my entire online "system" wrapped up into one tool, I like tools that do a few things really well...with an interface that makes more sense to me.