Yahoo is testing a new note-taking application integrated into search called Yahoo Search Pad. This isn’t publicly available yet, but look for it to become a feature of Yahoo’s search engine in the future. I’ve played around with a beta version. Unlike other note-taking tools, such as Google Notebook, Search Pad doesn’t force you to go somewhere else to take notes. It also tries to figure out when you might be in research mode, and records and groups all of your searches for you.
As you do searches on Yahoo, it recognizes when you are searching or clicking on links related to the same topic. If it thinks you are in research mode, as opposed to looking up a single site or a single fact, it will prompt you with a toolbar ynder the search box asking you if you want to take notes. Or you can always open up Search Pad on your own. When you do, a box opens up over the search results isting all of your related searches.
As you go back and forth, researching a topic on the Web, you can cut and paste or add your own notes. Even if you didn’t go to a site dierctly from Yahoo Search, you can still cut and paste some text and Search Pad will compare it to Yahoo’s Web index and associate the clipped text with a URL. Each collection of links and notes is caleld a “document” and you can share documents via e-mail with other people.
The idea is that you can just go about your normal Web surfing day (searching, clipping, taking notes) and Search Pad will organize it for you. What makes it potentially powerful is that it ties back into Yahoo’s search engine to assist your brain in categorizing and organizing your notes, and even reminding you when you should think about taking notes. Search Pad addresses a very limited use case, however. Yahoo has found that people are in this research/note-taking mode only a very small portion of the time.
The one thing the product is lacking is a way to share your notes publicly. Documents (the collection of notes around a given topic) don’t have their own URL. That is going to limit the appeal and usefulness of Search Pad. On the Web, documents you can’t link to might as well not exist.
Seems interesting. Would love to try it out.
Anjali Sen
http://smartbab...xy.blogspot.com
it’s great here is a review also if you want to check it out
http://www.expe...ure-search-pad/
Hey TC, you need more ads. I almost click on one while navigating your site. If you add a few more I will surly click on one in error (profit!).
Also add a few more widgets, my web browser loves loading widgets!
Strange. OneNote does the same thing and I can use it with any search engine. My research is also available when I’m offline.
Might be interesting, but I agree OneNote is the best thing out there in note-taking. The only thing is that it is not free.
Isn’t this just like evernote?
This would be super useful looking for housing or project report research quick notes. Very cool!
I take your point about not being able to share, but this seems to be specifically targeting people’s personal search. And unlike all the other programs people are mentioning here (Evernote, OneNote, Zoho Notebook), you don’t need any software or plug-in, and your notes follow you on whichever computer you use.
Having said that, the option to tag an entire research session into Delicious for public viewing would be even more tempting. Then when someone embarks on similar research to yours, they could be pointed in the direction of sites that have been linked together previously.
Lots of options, let’s see how it pans out.
There you go, they’re planning on the Delicious integration:
http://blog.wir...-debuts-se.html
Looks like a useful tool, but is it enough to make users switch from Google to Yahoo? Probably not.
Our new photo profile project of the top 1000 media personalities pulls photos from all the search engines. Mr. Arrington is already included. Yahoo clearly needs to improve the basic search.
Looks like an interesting addon…
Like that its well integrated into the search experience — Yahoo is starting to think like an end-to-end application/experience rather then a bunch of services with the same brand name.
It’s about time yahoo started adding simple valued added functionality to their service. This stuff is simple, but useful. A couple more features like this and people may start switching from Google.
Yahoo ist definitly on the right way. They developed some interesting applications like BOSS and SearchMonkey. Their services should focus on the users and the webmasters.
kudos to yhoo – they’re not giving up despite having so many reasons to do so.
lots of typos!
Simple easy to use application that could appeal to a large market both consumers and business people.
I don’t see it anything different from delicious. I use delicious for my research purpose. I have installed delicious plugin for the browser (firefox as well as IE). It sync the bookmarks when I am online. I can add tags and organize my research and also share it with my friends & family.
Yes!
Yahoo ist definitly on the right way.
It’s nice to see yahoo adding new features. Hope it has better luck than Google notebook!
It’s great to see that Yahoo is offering this. may be google start this soon………………….
http://www.zahi...-notes-for-you/
Well people – when that comes out – if you use it – you’re a fool.
That’s a wet dream for marketers and so many others. A record of what you do on the net all day long – every day.
In our tech world – you need to protect your privacy – not tempt companies to invade it.
I bet 0.01% of the people will read an “Click to Accept” message – if there even *is* a message.
This is an awesome feature. Go Yahoo!
Isn’t this the same type of thing that the Google toolbar does with visited pages?
Hi folks. This is Laura from Yahoo. I just wanted to let you know there is an easy URL if you’re interested in tinkering with, learning more about and/or keeping up with Yahoo! Search Pad here: http://searchpad.yahoo.com.
Hope you have fun with it!