May 18th, 2006

I just got myself a Google Notebook and I think I like it! Taking snippets of text from webpages and archiving it online privately or publicly is pretty cool.

I especially like the simple Firefox Extension. It adds a little ‘open notebook’ to the browser’s status bar, which when clicked pops up a little in-page pop-up where you can type text or capture selected text from the current page. Very nice!

I did find one pretty neat feature that the Google Notebook help pages doesn’t mention. Right click the button in the status bar, and you’ll find an Enable ‘Note This’ button option. Enabling this doesn’t seem to do much straight away, and in fact, it took me a while to figure it out. But when it’s enabled, try selecting some text, and a little [+] button will appear at the end of your selection — click it to add your selection to your currently selected notebook! Neato

So uses for Google Notebook? I could find it useful for keeping a list of things I want to post about, a shopping list, inspirational quotes, or maybe even for some GTD loving. What will you be doing with your Google Notebook?

A Closer Look at Google Notebook

By Chris Sherman, Executive Editor
May 17, 2006

Google's new Notebook tool lets you clip text, images or search results and save them in online notebooks that you can share with others. How does Google's new tool stack up against the competition?

Web research tools have been around since the first web bookmarks allowed you to save a list of favorite URLs. These types of tools are designed to help you save, organize and revisit content you've found on the web. Some are simple clipping tools; others allow you to create searchable databases of web content with lots of bells and whistles.

The Google Notebook, like most of Google's recent product offerings, leans toward the simple and sparse. To use it, you need a free Google Account and must be logged in. Then you need to download a browser extension to enable the service.

Google Notebook is currently only available for Internet Explorer 6 (not the beta version of IE 7), or Firefox 1.5+. Users of other browsers can't use the tool, though Google says it may make versions for Safari and Opera available later.

Once you've downloaded and installed the browser extension, simply highlight content from web pages you want to save, right click and select the "Note this (Google Notebook)" option. The content you selected is saved, with the source URL automatically captured as well. This works even if you don't highlight any content—it has the same effect as bookmarking a page in Google Notebook.

Once you've saved a chunk of content, you can annotate it with descriptive text in the Mini-notebook window, but unlike many other web research tools, there's no way to add tags or other meta data.

You can create as many notebooks as you like, giving each a descriptive name, and within notebooks you can create sections to help you organize the content you find. You can also move clipped content around in your notebook, or move it from one notebook to another simply by dragging it—a nice touch for compulsive organizers.

Once you've created notebooks, you can access them in two ways. In the lower right corner of your browser, you'll see an "Open Notebook" tab. Clicking this opens up the "Mini-notebook" window that appears when you clip content to the notebook. You can also select "Go to full page view" from the actions menu.

The full page view lists your notebooks in the left pane, and displays the contents of the currently selected notebook on the right pane. The full pane view also features a search box that lets you search the contents of your notebooks, public notebooks or the web.

By default, notebooks are private. You can share a notebook by clicking the "make public" button, which makes it visible when anyone searches other public notebooks.

How does Google Notebook compare with other web research tools? It's probably closest to Furl, a Looksmart-owned service I reviewed back in 2004. Google's slick Ajax interface makes Notebook a tad easier to use than Furl, but on the other hand it's easier to make a copy of a complete web page with Furl. Google Notebook tends to favor snippets of content, rather than saving cached copies of web pages. Clicking the link Google Notebook associates with each of your clips sends you to the original web site, where the content may or may not have changed.

Yahoo's MyWeb lets you save copies of web pages, and offers the ability to add your own descriptive tags to content you save. MyWeb also offers more control over sharing of your saved material, allowing you to share with everyone or a specific list of contacts.

Ask's MyStuff offers even more options, including the ability to create photo albums from your own pictures and those you've found on the web, blog or otherwise share your stuff.

Microsoft's Onfolio, part of the Windows Live Toolbar, lets you save and organize copies of web pages on your own computer, rather than as an online service—particularly useful if you need to refer to your web research while offline. The downside is that it's only available for Internet Explorer at this point.

Two other web research assistants reviewed in SearchDay include eSnips (review), and ContentSaver, (review)—one of the most extensive web research managers, with lots of bells and whistles that most of the other programs mentioned here lack.

If you really like the community based sharing approach, check out Clipmarks, a service that combines a clipping service with an active user group that comments on clips and rates them.

The bottom line with Google Notebook: It's a useful, unobtrusive service that will be most useful for quick, informal web research projects where you want to quickly gather up links and snippets of content (for example, I used it in researching this article). If you're looking for something you plan to use heavily, I'd suggest taking all of the services mentioned for a test drive, and pick the one that works the best for your own needs.

For more information on Google Notebook, visit the overview page or the Google Notebook FA

Google Notebook - the good, the bad, and the ugly

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 5:30 am

Digg This!

So Google Notebook has launched. In a previous post, I wondered who needed to worry about this new foray into organizing the world's information. Based on a first test, probably no one.

Why? Because there's nothing particularly great about this tool, at least in its initial form. It's not terrible although I can't connect to my Notebook at the moment - probably because everyone on the East Coast is banging on Google's door trying to get a Notebook set up right now. It's just not great.

It is functional and will probably end up being mildly useful but I see nothing to suggest I will focus my information gathering on this tool rather than OneNote or EverNote. Mike Arrington won't be switching form del.icio.us anytime soon. Steve Rubel wants better integration with other Google services and hates the fact that Google Notebook requires a plug-in. A few readers and bloggers have pointed out that ClipMarks does everything Google Notebook does and a lot more.

Arrington closes with this thought which I can't argue with one bit:

My final thought is this: Google Notebook will have some level of success just because it’s associated with Google, and built directly into search results. Like Aim Pages, I do not feel that it is a particularly inspired product, or one that I would give much of a chance if it didn’t have Google backing it up. Del.icio.us would have been a perfect acquisition for Google, right down to the user interface which is very Google-like. For whatever reason they let it go to Yahoo. I suspect that over time they’ll regret that decision.

I also wonder about Google’s dedication to its own projects. For example, what will be the fate of Google Bookmarks now that Google Notepad has launched? Google Labs is littered with half baked and half finished products. I see little or no product vision coming out of Google, sitting fat and arrogant on it its Adsense revenues.

Yup… this is another nice try that falls short. No Gmail "wow" factor here. Move along now.

Google Notebook launched

5/16/2006 10:42:42 AM, by Ken Fisher

Google Notebook has finally arrived. What is it? Google calls it "an online 'notebook' where you can organize all your research, add personal notes to it, and share it with others," and this is an apt description. A more technical description might describe Google Notebook as a kind of "web clipboard," inasmuch as you can "cut and paste" links, text, images, etc., into your online notebook.

Better than "cut and paste," Google Notebook uses browser extensions to allow users to easily mark materials using a right-click contextual menu, as pictured below. The two-click operation silently adds the item to your Google Notebook, which you can then retrieve later from any location. Google Notebook users will also see modified Google search results, with "Note this" appearing to the right of the usual "Cached - Similar Pages" links on search results.

Users can establish multiple notebook categories, if they wish, and can even choose to make some of those categories publicly viewable at a special URL. You can then arrange your clips in your notebook and annotate them if you desire, but strangely you cannot assign clips to multiple notebooks (that is, your new Thai recipe couldn't sit in both your "Thailand" notebook and your "cooking" notebook). Tagging is not supported, either.

The contextual menu in Firefox.

Google Notebook was likely designed, in part, to be a del.icio.us killer. The social bookmarking site was acquired by Yahoo last fall and sets the standard for the simple sharing of "bookmarked" online content. Google's service has fledgling social components to it, and the company is undoubtedly hoping that it will ultimately build on Google's already impressive search user base. Imagine, for instance, if Google used Notebook users' selections to partially weight search results. If enough users were tapping into the service, it could be feasible. That said, Google Notebook duplicates some of the functionality of Google Bookmarks, and it is unclear how the two products relate to one another, let alone to a larger plan. 

For end users, however, it's the functionality that counts, and in this regard, the simplicity of Google Notebook is hard to exaggerate. Given Google's massive user base (thanks mostly to Gmail), it shouldn't be hard for Google to grow this service aggressively, if they can get users to try it. 

Having spent the morning playing with Google Notebook, I'm not ready to say that it's going to stomp del.icio.us. Right now there are significant differences between the two, with del.icio.us being more effective for sharing content with the world then Google's current offering. On the other hand, Google's annotation and collection process is seamless, and the integrated notebook view in the browser is fantastic (although when open, it causes Firefox to slow down when changing tabs, in my limited testing). Google Notebook could be the next "gotta have it" beta out of Google Labs.

Google Notebook is only available for Firefox and Internet Explorer at this time.

Google Notebook, the web copy says, makes it easy to collect web research of all kinds - from planning a vacation to researching a school paper to buying a car. You simply clip and gather information even while you're browsing the web. All your notes belong to Google. To clip information you need to use the mini Google Notebook. This unfortunately requires a browser extension. Hmm, why not integrate this into the Google Toolbar?

Once your notes are in Google Notebook you can make them publicly available. Then all of these public notes can be searched from this search page. According to the FAQ it takes two days for your notebooks to get indexed.

The Google Notebook interface itself is very straightforward. You create a notebook. Then each notebook can feature rich text notes. You then have the option to print or share notebooks. All of your notebooks are naturally searchable.

Google Notebook is straightforward and easy to use but I am disappointed in it. I don't like that the mini Google Notebook requires a browser plug-in. I don't see why it can't work the same way Google Talk works inside Gmail. This makes Google Notebook virtually useless when I am using someone else's computer.

As Google grows I have been noticing that they are producing less winners. Google Trends, for example, is a great tool. But others like this one and Google Co-op are duds from the get-go.

Here are some screens I took of Google Notebook ...





View All Articles by Steve Rubel

Google Notebook Goes Live

Tuesday May 16th 2006, 5:30 pm
Filed under: News
By: Jayesh Mansukhani

Google is one of the leading innovators in the webspace today. They keep rolling out all kinds of services from online document editors to expanding email.

Recently they indicated that they’d planned to roll out a whole new host of stuff aimed at increasing productivity online. One of these services - Google Notebook - just went live. Google says:

Google Notebook is a simple way for users to save and organize their thoughts when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from the pages they’re browsing, save them to an online “notebook” that is accessible from any computer, and share them with others.

Google Notebook is an interactive scratch pad for every website a user visits, offering a single online location to collect web findings without having to leave the browser window. For example, if a user were planning a vacation, she could clip the most relevant materials on the pages she visits and add personal notes to help organize all of her research.

Head onto this link and sign in to this new service to check it out.

Technorati Tags: Google Notebook, Google, Google Labs

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2 Comments so far
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This is an awesome product. I have been waiting so long for a product like this and Google does a fabulous job of it. BTW, the man behind this product as well (He also Launched Google Co-op last week) is Shashi Seth. Last year he was named NRI of the year by Hindustan Times.

Comment by Kanwal Singh 05.16.06 @ 8:01 pm

I’m loving Google Notebook, I got the Firefox extension to use with it and it’s great. I can organize all I wanna save on the web easily.

Comment by wom 05.16.06 @ 9:29 pm

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Google Notebook Gadgets?

Garett Rogers reads Google source code like others read books, and he now found pieces suggesting a coming Google Gadgets integration into Google Notebook (and possibly, Gmail and image upload features for Notebook).

Google Notebook Gadgets?

(View post)
CJ Millisock	Wednesday, May 17, 2006 1 day ago • 202 views
How are others using Google Notebook? How do you guys think Gadgets can possibly be integrated? Will it allow gadgets to be brought along with you anywhere you surf, essentially making the Google Personalized Homepage obsolute?
pacificdave	1 day ago
not really digging the whole Google Gadgets concept but like the integration with Gmail.
/pd	1 day ago
not sure..where this is heading personal hompy vs notebook ?? If that be the case, I still prefer Hompy..l as its accesible via into my smartphone With notenook, its like you locked into your desktop
Sam Davyson	1 day ago
Emailing in notes or an option from within Gmail (PREFERRED) is bound to come soon. The thing I think about Google Notebook though is that it is pretty much designed around a paradox. Here we go... == You want to keep track of notes from the web. You could do this in a word document on the local system you are at but it would be cool if it followed you round onto any PC. So you use the ultra new Google Notebook. It is web based it will be on any computer with a web connection. == However to add things to the Notebook in a useable fashion as you browse you need to have the Google Notebook extension / addon installed which the vast majority of computers DO NOT! So your notes are online, and you can read them (and add to them via google.com/gn ) but you cant add to them in the cool way it was designed from anywhere. I ask this: If Gabbly can make this sort of thing with no download: gabbly.com/www.google.com Then why cant Google make an Ajax thing that follows you round with no plugin required?
Clement	1 day ago
I'd like to see some nice featur enabling the integration of notebooks in blogs. This would enable a blogger to post some stuff he thought were interesting, but not enough to post an actual article. So blog-readers would just see the notebook updating live, and would make bloggers' lives easier :).
/pd	1 day ago
Why is that certain WebPAges dont have the "Notebook Icon" on them ?? e.g. bloglines and my local intranet ??
Travis Harris	1 day ago
Sam, For me, I mostly go between three or four computers. three of which I can install whatever I need on. So if I were using notebook that would still be quite a benifite for me. But the UI stinks so I'm not using it yet.
justinf	23 hours ago
it could be extremely useful for students – a central place for your lecture notes.
KoreV	15 hours ago
I think Google Notebook is improved version (i like it more ;) of Yahoo's MyWeb. What do you think?