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Microsoft's Thumbtack, an Answer To Google Notebook
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."
Seriously. Whats next? Windows 7 will feature a task bar at the top of the screen with a magnifying shortcut bar at the bottom of the screen?
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
From TFA:
Thumbtack works in Internet Explorer and Firefox, but it lacks some features when used in Firefox, Microsoft said.
So the Firefox extension lacks the "Share" or "Publish" ability, right?
There is no knowledge that is not power.
Oh, how cute! Clippy's got a cousin.
I bet Thumby's classification of information works just as well as Clippy's classification of my current action.
I thought Microsoft was against the "theft" (infringement) of Intellectual "Property" (assets).
So does that mean their product is a pain in the ass?
FTA: "Thumbtack works in Internet Explorer and Firefox, but it lacks some features when used in Firefox, Microsoft said."
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.
And apparently, Microsoft thinks people like being forced to use their software. Well, guess what? They don't. They resent it. It's not 1999 anymore. People now understand AOL is not synonymous with the Internet and Microsoft is not synonymous with software.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
When I have something interesting to paste or write down, and am too lazy to start up my text editor, I use Google Notebook.
The disadvantage of the text editor is that I can only rarely remember what I named a file if I was in a hurry. The notebook lets me search and even preserve markup and images. Basically, Google Notebook is the text editor for the Lazy.
Microsoft Thumbscrew! The product guaranteed to make you scream in agony! Now with even more boneheaded user interface design decisions! Order now, and we'll somehow work in DRM and the Internet Explorer rendering engine, too!
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
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.
Funny, I thought all those long words meant, "We are searching your notes so that we know what advertisements to cram down your throat."
Note - Liberal use of <sarcasm> tags may or may not need to be applied.