Microsoft’s Live Labs has just released Thumbtack, a web clipping service that allows users to compile links, media, and text snippets into online storage bins for future reference. Users can also share their Thumbtack collections with their peers, allowing them to collaborate by adding new clips and notations.
To add a photo or snippet of text to their Thumbtack canvas, users can either highlight the text and paste it in manually, or use a browser bookmarklet (the service works fine on IE7 and Firefox, and isn’t OS dependent). Each of these clippings can be sorted into folders called ‘Collections’, which can be published to the web via RSS, embedded in blogs, opened to friends for collaboration, or kept private for safe keeping.
Thumbtack also allows users to customize their experience by offering a set of ‘gadgets’. At launch available gadgets include an Address gadget that can identify addresses in clips and find them on a map, a Properties gadget that allows users to assign a price value to a specified item, and a Layout gadget that allows users to change the organization of their Thumbtack workspace. In the future the team plans to offer gadgets that can suck data from Office applications, and may eventually release a sandbox environment allowing developers to create their own gadgets.
There are a number of sites that offer some very similar functionality, including Google Notebook, Evernote (covered here), SimplyBox, and Snipd. There’s also Twine, a web clipping service that can automatically categorize items using semantic sorting technology. The Labs Team has tried to explain what differentiates Thumbtack in its FAQ:
While there are several applications that overlap with functionality in Thumbtack, they all serve specific constituencies related to list making or note taking. Thumbtack focuses on being a repository and crossroads for user collected content from across the web. It emphasizes the activities that follow the act of gathering – archival, research, sharing and publishing. Thumbtack stands apart in its ability to introspect on incoming data in order to automatically classify it and extract structure from it using machine learning…
Thumbtack may be able to eventually separate itself from these competitors, especially if it does open the platform to outside developers. But for now it still has a ways to go - in my testing I found it to be pretty buggy (one of my collections seems to endlessly copy and paste the same TechCrunch logo whenever I open it). And the interface isn’t as sleek or intuitive as some of the other services I’ve tried. Still, as a Live Labs project it’s inherently a work in progress, and given some of the other projects that we’ve seen from them (like the very cool Photosynth), Thumbtack is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
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Looks very good to me!
It look like a netvibes idea ,a collection of different link and widget, correct me if i’m wrong.
Nat
http://www.workersinc.com
Front page looked a bit messed up in FF3.
Didn’t go beyond that.
Unlike Photosynth, I don;t really think this is labs worthy.
Snipd.com is way easier, you just use a bookmarklet that you drag to your browser.
This offers a similar bookmarklet
actually i find this to be quite nice. possible addition to office web, in the future for things like collaboration.
Looks like they have tried to mimick bothe Clipmarks (www.clipmarks.com) functionality and also that of Evernote.
I guess those that have been out for a few years should consider it flattery that MS copied them.
this seems to be a goog service
Who cares…at some point I stopped wanting to support Microsoft… Ballmer feels too much like a used car salesman..
doesn’t work on chrome, can’t say i’m surprised
Even Lively by Google did not work in Chrome. The browser isn’t fully ready to take on the web.
The most important text above is
“the service works fine on IE7 and Firefox, and isn’t OS dependent”
The more Microsoft can truly deliver products that fit this model, the greater likelihood they gain adoption beyond their walled gardens.
http://www.deepmemo.com
uhh… what about Microsoft ONENOTE the app that started all of the notebooks. what is going to happen to that? I think ms needs to talk to them selves. TALK PEOPLE TALK ONENOTE IS GREAT!!!! make it better
The issue with Thumbtack and Google Notebook is these are really high end clipping solutions. If you’re out in the field and you want to jot down pure information: either writing something to yourself or transcribing (like taking notes in class or a meeting) - these tools really don’t solve that. They are great for copy/paste jobs but they don’t help you get information down fast or accurately…
I finally found something that actually helped me transcribe notes online.
If you want a pure text note taking solution that is absurdly quick, barebones, and focuses on data entry check out http://www.ayenotes.com for taking notes online.
AyeNotes was wired for text only notes - sort of the use you describe in your article. Its key feature is that it provides clips for frequently used strings. These can be templates you type, terms you use (action items, research, etc.), or it can be programmer-esque things like HTML and Markdown.
The site also autosaves the work and provides keystroke. If you have the site remember the login, everytime you go to http://www.ayenotes.com to take notes online you are dropped right into the new note screen. To get your data out, you can email or download the note in multimarkdown format.
thanks
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