Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Google's Notebook service, which allows web users to store and compile links to web sites, favourites, and snippets of information while browsing, went live last week as a beta....Notebook allows access the clippings file via the status bar of the user’s browser. Text and images can be saved, along with the domain from which they came. Users will need a Google or Gmail username and password; and Firefox users will need to download version 1.5 of the browser.
However, Google really needs to start offering options to add items to the right click menu and not just hard code it into every product. It's a pain going into the registry to remove toolbar options, notes options, etc from the right click menu every time Google launches a new product. I think the most work I do on friend's computers is removing Google right click menu registry items to the point its just easier to uninstall the Google product.
Unfortunately, it's still dependent on a Google account to work - so many of us who log into different Google accounts for advertising purposes can't stay logged into the system to use this product.
When is Google going to tie email, calendar, notes, gtalk, favorites, etc together with a nice overlay and integrate them all with each other?
I have two thoughts.
1. From a user standpoint this is a great tool. It is so versitile that it can store any type of information you can dream up.
2. From a webmaster standpoint it is scary. Now a user can visit your site, copy whatever info they want and store it in their notebook. There is no real need to bookmark anymore, if the content is not going to change, just swipe it and they will never have to return.
Also, this Google notebook is a direct ripoff of Backpackit. That's lame. If you're a big company that's going to steal a little company's idea, at least enhance it before you release it. That's starting to make me think of Google the same way I think of Microsoft, Amazon, McDonald's, Wal Mart, Coors; addictive, unsympathetic, cruel. I mean they've been a big company for a long while but now they're really starting to act like one.
I don't have the love for this Internet stuff anymore. I'll keep working here but I'm going to start spending my freetime gardening.
Later,
JoCo
I don't see reminders or to-do's in Notebook. In backpackit, try copying and pasting text AND images AND website address one stroke like Notebook.
Just migrated all my favorites into subject matter "notebooks" and done away with the bookmarks toolbar and browser bookmarks; and now have an identical FireFox environment on my desktop and laptop :)
Ok, I know this has been semi-possible with del.icio.us and live bookmarks etc. for some time, and there are complaints on other forums about the lack of tagging; but IMHO I think an automated classification is the way to go.
My only gripe so far: The Notebook popup in the browser doesn't maintain state. I want the notebook list to stay open, but it closes each time I minimise the popup.
Not my words
A new way to spread links?
Some people argue that it is beta software, give it time, etc. What I don't get is why a search company like Google cannot have a basic feature like search public notebooks (that they market a lot) live and functioning? Do they want to evaluate results of what people make public before they go ahead and enable it?
Or is it actually not ready? :o
-Dhiraj.
[edited by: lawman at 10:36 pm (utc) on May 16, 2006]
[edit reason] No links to blogs please [/edit]
I like it but for me it offers no real reason to abandon Furl or Del..
(btw-it does have a right click feature)
I want to use it to be able to save notification pages like transaction success code pages (when you book something with a credit card, for example).
I currently use a different Firefox extension which does this quite brilliantly. Only it doesn't save it online anywhere. :(
Dhiraj.
GRRRRRRRR!
Some people argue that it is beta software, give it time, etc. What I don't get is why a search company like Google cannot have a basic feature like search public notebooks (that they market a lot) live and functioning? Do they want to evaluate results of what people make public before they go ahead and enable it?
bigG is running out of ideas
this is absolutely useless to my mind
but this isjust me...
Good to know that something you find useless must be useless to everyone else.
The contextual/qualitative value of bookmarks is immense. Cue Yahoo's purchase of Delicious.
There should be a way to save the whole page to the Notebook. Right clicking on a page with nothing selected and saying "Note this" just adds a bookmark to the notebook. :(
Good point - but it's a neat way of adding bookmarks, though.
My favorite Google Lab or BETA yet? No. But it's interesting. I've only been playing around with it for a little while. The real question: will I continue to use it?
And yes, I agree it's another way to spread links, though I'm not certain what good it will do without valid link text.
I think what google is looking at is just picking up the textual data, and the image links and using them only in the note. This might be for whatever reasons - technical or ulterior but we can attribute it to their way of doing things.
While this is pretty acceptable for those who only want the actual meaningful data on the page, people can't really use it to save "web pages" as such - like if they achieve something on the net for example.
Maybe a front page listing in (insert favorite high visibility website here) :)
I'd like to save something like that forever. Online, replete with all styling and images so that it looks exactly like it was looking like on the site. Scrapbook let's me do that well but locally only. Google Notebook doesn't do it well (or 100% of the time - it fails for me on an ajaxy site) but it let's me store it online and "publish" these as well.
(sigh)
I guess I'll have to play the waiting game till somebody either takes on Google Notebook as competition or somebody integrates Scrapbook into an online store (as in database) as well. Say, now that's an idea!
Anyone got any ideas on if this is doable?
-Dhiraj.
p.s. All apologies for the longish post, I do tend to get verbose.
Oh, and it didn't seem to cache itself... Slowed Firefox right down...
So the extension has been uninstalled and I've gone back to MyStickies...
> Some people argue that it is beta software,
> give it time, etc.
It's not even beta. It's a Google Labs project; not an official Google service. "Labs" is, as Google calls it, a "playground." What's in there are nothing more than ideas being kicked around and played with. Some of the Labs projects have become Google development projects; this one so far isn't.
" Can Google Notebooks affect the ranking of websites? What are the implications of Notebooks from an SEO standpoint and how can we use it to our advantage?"
I believe it will affect rankings. You have to think Google views this as user generated content (by proxy) and generally content of good will.
As U.G.C. gains momentum you will see relevance pinned to the more popular links saved.
Look at Furl and how their popular "saves" are found with the click of a tab. Those popular saves are then founds in the LookSmart vertical directory.
Yahoo will do this with Del. as well IMO.
I would save every link and page you operate.
