I am slowly making my way through the ever-growing list of Google Apps available on their website and have just had my first dabble with Google Notebook. From my early observations it seems to be a reasonable (but not ultimate) alternative to del.icio.us for all your online bookmarking needs.
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.
