WebNotes™ Launches Exclusive Public Beta for Online Research Tool
Cambridge, Mass. – December 10, 2008 –
WebNotes™, an MIT startup, has just released their acclaimed research tool to the public. WebNotes' online research service helps people manage the deluge of online content they sift through every day by providing users with a virtual highlighter and sticky note tool that can be used to make annotations directly on any web page. This eliminates the need to repeatedly copy and paste information into a word processor document or email, or sort through hundreds of bookmarks. Users' annotations are automatically saved to their WebNotes accounts for later reference from any computer, and can be searched, organized, and shared with others through the service.
How is WebNotes Unique?
WebNotes offers a technology platform that goes beyond current "social annotation" tools, focusing strongly on the needs of the professional web researcher. The WebNotes team has been working to build the right solution for web researchers for almost two years.
"The market demand to serve the individual researcher is untapped," says Ryan Damico, co-founder and CEO. "There are several 'social annotation' tools out there that focus on building communities around annotated content, completely neglecting the individual professional user. WebNotes aims to tap this market and provide a powerful tool of unparalleled quality, that is easy to learn and simple to use."
WebNotes Offers Easy Annotation, Organization, and Sharing of Web Content
The company breaks down their feature set into four main components, allowing users to:
- Highlight and make notes on any web page. Annotations are automatically saved to the user's WebNotes account and will appear any time the user returns.
- Organize and search annotated content by grouping selected information into nested folders through a sidebar in the user's web browser or directly through WebNotes’ web site.
- Share annotated pages with colleagues by sending them a single hyperlink through e-mail, instant message, or corporate wiki. Recipients can view shared annotated pages without downloading any software or registering for a WebNotes account.
- Automatically summarize annotated content into an HTML or PDF document without copying and pasting, making it easy to distribute large sets of annotated content to others.
There are two versions of the WebNotes software: the WebNotes Toolbar and the WebNotes Bookmarklet. The Toolbar is a plug-in that installs into either Internet Explorer or Firefox, while the bookmarklet is a "no-download" alternative that requires bookmarking a special link, and works with most popularly available browsers.
WebNotes' typical users range from business professionals such as marketers and analysts, to academics who need to aggregate ideas from multiple online resources. One such user, a product manager for a large software company, notes "I got it at the right time - I had to review a ton of pages of a new website and WebNotes came in very handy. It has been a long time since I have said 'Wow' when I have seen a new product and WebNotes did make me say it. The second test for any product is the reaction it generates when others see it. When my colleagues saw me using it, the reaction was 'Cool' and 'How can I get hold of it?'."
The company has white papers detailing typical uses for corporations at www.webnotes.net/Solutions.
About WebNotes, Inc.
WebNotes, Inc. was started in 2007, is privately funded, and consists of 5 employees, 4 of which graduated from MIT.
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