Microsoft's Thumbtack, an Answer To Google Notebook 107
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Live Labs have introduced a new service that lets users collect snippets of information from Web sites and share the collections with others. It's similar in concept to Mozilla's Joey, a defunct project that let people copy and paste portions of Web pages onto a single page that they could access from their mobile phones or another computer. Thumbtack is also like other available services, including Google Notebook. But Thumbtack developers think their service has a difference. '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,' according to the FAQ about the service."
Re:I think an important question here is... (Score:1, Interesting)
I've never used Google's Notebook, but lately I have increasingly found myself in the situation of needing such a feature.
Currently though, I'm using a combination of 2 Firefox add-ons: Read It Later and Evernote. First for quickly adding to a tray pages that contain some useful/interesting one-time read info (browsing, mainly). The second, to help me keep my wish list organized, searchable and comparable. Eventually, I get to make an informed decision on what to buy if or when the time comes.
Re:OF the things you COULD have replied to... (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft have woken up to the threat of Google, and the fact that Google have caught Microsoft with their pants down on several new revenue models. They assume "if Google are doing it, then we need to". Every competing service they do, to try and take share away from Google fails. They want to buy Yahoo (or parts of it) to buy that marketshare where they failed to get it with their own services. They seem oblivious to the fact that their products and services have to be forced on people, that most people don't choose the Microsoft service when they do have a choice.
Re:Microsoft will Remain Second Rate Player on Web (Score:3, Interesting)
This makes no sense. The code is already there to make it work on firefox. There are probably five or more extensions that do this kind of thing on Firefox, and some are already superior to Google notebooks. They should just use that code (at least for the client-side), and stop trying to reinvent the wheel
And for some that might say that the license might be a problem, think again, most extensions on firefox are not encumbered by restrictive open source licenses, and like I said, there are plenty to chose from, so it's very likely that Microsoft finds one that's just right for them.
Re:Saline Scrotum Swelling, a Slashdot Solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Is Google Notebook being discontinued? (Score:3, Interesting)
The citation is missing. Can someone verify that this is true? Why is Microsoft competing against a project that Google is dropping?
P.s. Can someone who knows more about this topic fix the Wikipedia page? Thanks!
Re:Microsoft will Remain Second Rate Player on Web (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft just doesn't get it. If you can't get your service to work with all major browsers, your service is going to be seen as inferior, not the browser.
Tell that to Google. Google Maps has had this [game-point.net] bug in Google Maps for YEARS now that causes printing in Firefox to be broken (because Firefox actually does things correctly), yet to look OK in IE6 and IE7. Do people think Google Maps is inferior? Hell, it doesn't work AT ALL in Opera.
Re:Fire up the copiers Redmond! (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right Microsoft invented everything which is why GUIs never existed before Microsoft.
If you think I even implied MS invented the 'taskbar' concept, you are either a fool or your tinfoil hat is on too tight.
My example was about a feature MS 'effectively' already provided, yet the browser 'fanbois' pushed for the tabs to be placed inside the browser like all the other neato 'browsers' were doing.
This was to illustrate that MS is often forced to copy crap because fools decide they want crap. PERIOD.
The brower 'tabs' is an example of regression to MDI interfaces that MS and most other modern GUI companies have gotten away from because the OS should manage document to document and view to view, not the application. Windows already let you hotkey between them, Windows already provided previes of the 'pages/tabs' open, etc. There was no need for this to be recreated at the application level.
I guess the whole UI regression was lost on people that still think putting tabs 'in' the freaking browser instead of on the taskbar actually makes things easier.
Here is how it works in the real world - users learn how to click the taskbar and alt-tab and all their little tricks on whatever OS they are using. Now with tabs in the browser they are back to MDI concepts of the early 90s where they have to learn Ctrl-Tab to flip tabs and other 'new' keystrokes, and for that they get more wasted screen space for the same crap.
If anyone is 'paying' attention to Windows7, one of the features of the new taskbar is to burrow into IE so that even if you have multiple tabs open, they show on the Taskbar, just like they use to going back to Win95 and the original IE. They literally have to code to pull the 'tab' images out of freaking IE just to get the same functionality back.
MS didn't invent anything, but what they were doing was more on track than the insane tab 'logic' that geeks forced on users and shoved MS to add to IE, as even they were getting knocked down in reviews for 'not' having this feature, when it WAS NOT NEEDED - all this, even though it is a flawed UI concept and cumbersome at best.
With crap like this and the 'new' 3D desktop patent from Apple it is enough to scare the hell of people like myself that actually work with the psychology impact of UI design. With regard to Apple's 'silly' 3D Desktop patent, there is a reason the same project never got out of MS Research back in 1999, it offers few features and a lot of complexity for the user. However, Apple will probably shove it down their users throats and they will click ten more times for the same thing to happen and love it.
Before the OSS and Apple 'UI Innovations' are done, everyone will be using MS Bob or an MDI in an MDI for everything. Heck, crank out an old copy of MS Works, it will be a revolutionary idea again.
Geesh...
Leave it to Microsoft... (Score:1, Interesting)
...to come up with a silly name like Thumbtack.
But I'll be happy to put a thumbtack on Ballmer's chair.