I just watched this video, thanks to a post on Lifehacker, about the release of the new beta version of Zoho Notebook. Zoho has an online, web-based suite of office products ranging from a Word Processor to a Spreadsheet program to this note taking application. They have a whole slew of applications, that all do a remarkably good job of providing an alternative to desktop based applications of the same type.
I have looked at all of the Zoho products at one time or another, and I think they are great, but I keep coming back to Google’s line of similar applications. Maybe it is the simplicity, maybe it is the name, maybe it is the familiarity, whatever the reason I tend to gravitate towards their applications. One Google application I use regularly is the Google Notebook. It is similar to the offering from Zoho, but what Zoho is doing really extends the functionality to the nth degree. It is a better comparison to say that Zoho Notebook is an online version of OneNote from Microsoft. Google’s notebook is quite feature poor in comparison.
That being said, I am still planning to stick with Google’s notebook for now. The beta of Zoho’s notebook still feels a bit clunky, some of the drag and drop functionality did not work in Firefox. The ability to re-select an added item of text and edit it was also a bit confusing. I think this might be a case where Zoho has too much functionality on the page, but it is still a beta. I will admit that the ability to embed a spreadsheet or other document into a notebook is a great content aggregation feature. They also have a pretty slick looking RSS reader you can embed in any page. I like the inclusion of both pages and tabs, something that OneNote has, in Zoho’s notebook. I think it is a better way to visualize the organization of your notebook than the sections that Google Notebook uses.
I would like to see another Google Notebook refresh in the near future. Zoho is proving that a very rich note taking environment can be created on the web, and I would love to see what Google can do. If you are in the market for a feature rich note taking/web clipping application this could be a good choice for you.