Similarities

• Both enable to to quickly add a bookmark/reference of a website to a central online location.
• Both use a nifty Firefox plugin to get the job done.
• Both are searchable.
• Both use labels, but while del.icio.us can assign many labels to one link, Notebook allows a link to belong to only one label (or notebook).
• Both allow you to share your bookmarks with others.

Differences

• del.icio.us user pages are visible to everyone, Notebook pages have to specifically shared.
• del.icio.us allows you to save a single link for a friend, which will appear in a special list on the recipient’s page, but Notebook only allows the sharing of a whole notebook.
• You can use Notebook as a simple note-taking tool without having a link to the original source.

Conclusions

I like the idea of having all the online services that I use in a central location. Google is making a good go of making this a reality. But for the time being I think del.icio.us will continue to be my online bookmarker of choice, just because of the multi-label and networking functions.

I’m sure these two applications were not designed to be in direct competition – which makes a direct comparison a bit unfair – I couldn’t help but notice that they both provide a similar service.

My Google usage

Daily use:

• Search
• Gmail
• Calendar
• Reader

Weekly use:

• Maps

Less frequent use:

• News
• Images
• Docs and Spreadsheets
• Groups

The last word

While Google may not be catering perfectly to everything I do on the internet, they’re making a damn good go of it. Here’s hoping they don’t get all nasty and start charging for all their services.