note-taking

Personal Information Management Applications and Web 3.0

This blog is devoted to the discussion of Semantic Web and Web 2.0/3.0 technology.

Managing personal and small group information.

When it comes to so-called Web 2.0 and 3.0 technology, one of the most proliferate marketplaces involves the explosion of applications for managing information for individuals and small groups. Looking only at applications developed for Macs, we see an array of information management technologies.

Notebooks.

One of the most popular formats for managing information uses the paradigm of a notebook. The user can create a notebook, often selecting from multiple canned formats, such as a diary, class notes, or a novel, complete perhaps with a notebook cover and a spiral wire down the left side. The application creates a table of contents, and users can create sections and pages - and stuff virtually any kind of information on each page. Two very good examples of this approach are NoteShare and Notebook.

Interestingly, and perhaps because many of the applications in this category have been around for a number of years, these tend to not be true web applications. Often you can share notebooks, including full read/write access, via a URL and a simple browser interface, and you can publish a notebook at a URL. But the products are primarily for single-user, desktop use.

A good example of a notebook application that is a true web application is Zoho Notebook. (Zoho actually provides a large set of web based applications, of which the note program is just one.)

Buckets.

The other very popular note format uses the bucket or folder approach. The application may or may not support the nesting of these buckets and/or the creation of conceptual buckets, so that a given note can exist in more than one bucket. Two very good applications that use this approach are SOHO Notes and Yojimbo. These two applications are desktop-based, although most applications in this category support the synching of notes over multiple machines, using the Apple web-synching technology.

A hybrid desktop/web application is Evernote, which has elegant desktop applications for Windows machines, Macs, and a variety of handhelds and cell phones. It also has a very effective web interface. The user can sync multiple Evernote desktop instances via Evernote’s web server. Users can thus avoid ever using the web interface.

Outlines.

One specialized sort of information management application involves the creation of embedded outlines and bulleted lists. These applications, such as OmniOutliner, actually provide a full notebook functionality as well. OmniOutliner notebooks can be published on the web, but it is very definitely a desktop application.

Task lists.

An even more specialized class of information management applications support To-Do lists. Great examples are Zenbe Lists (they also provide integrated email and collaborative software) and rememberthemilk.com. These are web applications.

Photos and video.

There are a rapidly growing number of applications that allow users to collect, sort, tag, edit, and share photographs and video. Apple’s iPhoto is a great example. It is very much a desktop app, although applications in this class typically support the publication of images and video on the web, and sometimes, even read/write access via the web.

Stories, scripts, novels, and storyboards.

There are a number of highly specialized applications that support the development of fiction, including Final Draft and Montage (scripts), Scrivener and StoryMill (fiction prose), and Toon Boom storyboard (which is actually an impressive drawing program). Again, users can often publish to the web. Interestingly, many of these applications can easily be used as full blown, generic note applications, and can manage many forms of media.

Diary Applications.

Perhaps the most popular diary application on Macs is MacJournal (by the Montage and StoryMill folks). An interesting twist is that it is also an excellent blogging program. I use it to write this blog. This is, of course, one of the most widely used vehicles for sharing information on the web, and you can expect other sorts of personal information management systems to have blogging capabilities added to them.

Small, forms-based database management systems.

These applications are desktop apps. Apple’s Bento is a very good example. It actually is a sort of hybrid database/spreadsheet application. The most recent release allows multiple instances of Bento to share databases running on computers on a shared network.

Mind-Mapping.

The “circles and lines” applications have become highly specialized. The most well known one is MindManager, and there are versions for Windows machines and Macs. These are desktop apps. The vender, MindJet, recently introduced both web interfaces for sharing and updating desktop mind maps, as well as a web-based application that has a fresh, smooth interface, and provides team collaboration tools. Many forms of media can be placed in MindManager, including data from a wide variety of relational database management systems.

Screen and audio capture.

There are a number of applications that allow users to capture desktop video, along with audio voice-overs. Camtasia (which has Windows and Mac products) and Screenium are popular products.

These applications are, in a way, successors to slide applications like Microsoft Powerpoint and Apple Keynote. More and more presentations are being engineered with screen capture and audio applications, and these applications often support text and image data, as well as the insertion of video capture of the speaker. Sometimes, Powerpoint slides can be imported.

Conferencing apps.

There are several applications that provide hybrid desktop/browser live communication, including video, sound, and collaborative white-boarding. The best known one is probably Cisco WebEx, which comes in varieties for Macs and Windows machines. Skype supports a similar, limited product - which is free. One of the nice things about these products is that they come with their own voice lines. Other products, like Adobe ConnectNow, require the use of a cell phone to carry voice. With most of these products, a conference can be recorded for later use.

Finally…

Importantly, we note that in this rapidly-exploding marketplace, the borders between these various categories are being broken down, and applications often support a number of these capabilities at once. A good example is Curio, a desktop application that supports notes, lists, video, audio, white-boarding, mind-mapping, and limited web publishing.

A look at a Web 2.0 App

It’s called Evernote and I am a very heavy user. It guides my every workday.

In earlier blog entries in this series on the Semantic Web and Web 2.0/3.0, we’ve said that the primary goal of Web 2.0 developers is to build web apps that perform like desktop apps. Let’s check this definition against Evernote.

It’s a note taking program, but not your traditional desktop note program. Two paradigms of note-taking have traditionally been very popular: build-a-notebook and file-it-away. The first gives you a virtual notebook, with a cover, a title, and a table of contents. Typically the contents are broken into sections, and the sections into pages. Each page might be straight text or indented outlines. The second approach gives the user a set of conceptual folders (and perhaps subfolders), with each one stuffed with notes that might be text or indented outlines. Both approaches might support “sticky” notes, audio notes, video notes, and/or image notes.

The web application concept is making heavy inroads, though. Two of the build-a-notebook programs I use allow the user to export them as webpages so they can be manipulated remotely. This of course means that the machine hosting the notes must be exposed to the Internet as a web server. More practically, it means that the notes can be shared only within a local area network or a closed intranet of some sort.

But Evernote goes a big step further. It is a true web app, with your notes stored on their server. The monthly fee is very modest, and is based on an upload allowance - a very generous one, unless your notes are packed with big chunk of media. My notes consist almost entirely of text and web pages that I find obf interest. I have their cheapest paid subscription (there is also a free one), and I only use a small fraction of my allowance. As of this moment (and yes, I am writing this on Evernote) I have 1,106 notes.

The model that Evernote uses is a variation of the file-it-away paradigm. There is a desktop client (available for Macs and Microsoft Windows machines) that presents the user with a column of conceptual folders, a listing of all notes in a given folder, and a viewing space for some specific note in the folder currently of interest. There is a sync protocol that keeps all notes up to date on the Evernote server. The web interface to the server isn’t as elegant as the desktop application, and I don’t use it much. You can also keep your notes locally on multiple machines. There is even an iPhone/iPod Touch version of the desktop app; I use it on my iPod Touch. There is also a mobile phone app, but I have not tried it. All of these applications are available to you for the one monthly fee.

I’ve done some experiments, and the syncing protocol works quite well. It creates a special folder in your Evernote desktop app if it finds a conflict it cannot resolve. As a result, I have never lost a single note or been forced to use an older version of any note. I have had, however, to dig things out of conflict folders.

So, why is it a Web 2.0 app? This is where I have to admit that the definition of Web 2.0 is, let’s say, very flexible. Yes, Evernote is fast, and the syncing never slows me down; I can create a note, click the sync button on Evernote on my iMac, and by the time I’ve rolled my chair over to my Vista machine, the new note is there. Web pages can upload far more slowly than straight text, admittedly. One more thing: Evernote allows you to put tags on your notes. And of course, you can search by those tags. Oh, and there is a very convenient web page clipper that I have used on Safari, Internet Explorer, and Firefox; it will tuck a web page away with a couple of clicks.

But in truth, it’s a Web 2.0 app, not because it is a web app whose performance approaches that of a destkop app, but largely because it is such a great blend of a desktop and web application. Rather than building a web-only app as an alternative to a desktop app, and then engineer the thing to be as fast as possible for uploading, downloading, and searching notes, they’ve given us the rapid access rate of a desktop, along with the mobility of a web app, and all the pieces seem to work together just right. It’s a very smart, very modern app.

I keep a heavy fraction of my notes on it, including my to-do lists, and whether I am in my home office, my university office, a university computer lab, Barnes and Noble, or wherever, my notes are always available.

Try it.