Saturday, June 26

Hosted idea organizer

I am looking for a hosted web application to use as a mind dump for ideas. I've tried a number of Google tools that almost work but each one misses a feature or two. Google Search was not much help either.

Required features:
  • Title field
  • Freeform tags
  • Per item comments
  • Per item private vs public toggle
  • Share by email for private items
  • File attachements
  • Domain alias
  • Search
  • Hide/view by tag
Like to have features:
  • Description field
  • Implemented toggle
  • Social media share buttons
  • Random metadata attachments such as links, ratings
  • Specific metadata attachments such as Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps, Tweets. Maybe with http://www.oembed.com/
Do you know of such a tool? Please please please let me know.
on this post by on Saturday, June 26, 2010 tagged with , ,

13 comments on this:

  1. Interesting. I commented on this last night but my comment isn't present.

    I think Evernote is as close as you're going to get without rolling your own, and I just abandoned Evernote for a non-hosted solution, so I can hardly sing its praise. It almost seems like you want something that's almost TOO structured, unless it's making this metadata using embedded links in a text block. I think tagging is somewhat useful, but not if you have more than a dozen or so tags, and I've been using these massive article and clipping organizers since 2004.

    This sounds like an awesome project, though.
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  2. I've been using mind mapping (MindNode Pro) for most of my ideation. I found a really interesting online map of collaboration tools http://www.mindmeister.com/12213323. Pretty cool that you can publish your maps with this site.
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  3. @jtth: Evernote does not look like it has quite the per item protection I'm looking for. I Kind of just want to build the project for fun. I think it would be a good Google App Engine tool.
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  4. kriswill: I like the mind map styles and I should use it more often. I don't think I want to use it for storing and organizing many ideas over a long period of time.
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  5. You could use WordPress. You can make each idea a post, which would give you comments, freeform tags, categorization, search, the ability to embed media and attach files, controls over public/private, and custom fields that you could use for metadata.

    You'd likely have to write your own theme or (more likely) customize an existing one to display everything as you would want, but it'd be easier than rolling your own. And there are plugins for countless things, e.g. social media share buttons.
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  6. @schellack: Can I have a WordPress post that is private but invite specific people to view and comment on it?
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  7. Abraham : you def can set up WP to have private posts. You can then allow only user types to have access. but they'll have to register to your WP instance. Maybe installing a FB connect or Twitter Log In plug in would avoid the need to register but then they'll have to wait for you to upgrade them to that user type...that is of course unless you want all registered users to have access to that post by default.

    Regardless, building your own is much cooler! Dot it in CakePHP, lol (like who has the time to build personal apps nowadays?)
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  8. AngelX: That sounds very annoying. Plus if I want each private poste to be vied by someone different each post would require their own user type.

    I've been thinking Google App Engine.
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  9. It IS indeed quite annoying. I am building my won Blog built on CakePHP that has all the features I need since Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Croogo and CakeUI all fail at meeting ALL my needs.

    I am not familiar with Google App Engine. I will research.
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  10. For me there's nothing good that is web-based... I use a product from http://www.thebrain.com which I think is an excellent tool for capturing thoughts and for doing something more important: thinking about thinking... It helps me manage a tremendous amount of information and activity, factual as well emotional information too... This is a mind-mapping tool... I like it far better than evernote (i know the founder of that one: he's a smart guy) but that one is more about capturing than organizing information.
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  11. Jeffg: Cool! I'll have to check out TheBrain. I'm worried though about what a mind map would look after years of use. I expect it would get very large.
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  12. Well it's not a static thing... it's something you "garden"... but it is true there are areas (dells, hedgerows, garbage heaps) that remain unvisited... And "search" will become your friend too...
    I have a friend who has about 140,000 "thoughts" in his... he says it has freed up his memory he says... That's not how it works for me... but I do find it a tool to which you can bring as much organization as you feel you need.
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  13. @jeff: Thanks. Mind mapping tools are definitely something I plan on looking into more.
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