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We are obvious Evernote fans here at 40Tech – but that doesn’t mean we aren’t open to other options! Recently we were contacted by the good folks at Shelfster, and asked if we might be interested in doing a review on their “application which allows you to easily organise and share with others your favorite information from the web, offline documents or real world”. They even provided us with 10 invitations to their private beta for our readers! We took their app for a spin, and found that Shelfster is pretty cool, overall. Have a read through and let us know what you think in the comments.
The first 10 comments with a raised hand will get the invite link.
For a quick walkthrough of some of Shelfster’s features, check out the public notes I made and posted in Shelfster while trying it out.
Shelfster is a free tool that attempts to bridge the gap between note taking/web clipping and annotation/social sharing. This is a good thing, because Evernote, as awesome as it is, just doesn’t share as well as it could. For example, if you want to share a single note in Evernote, the only way to do it is by email (or by email to a service like Ping.FM, but that’s a different post altogether). You can’t find information via Evernote, either, socially or otherwise — Evernote is mainly meant for note taking, and it does what it’s meant for extremely well. With Shelfster, both sharing and searching for information is pretty easy.
Now that the main differences are put to bed, let’s look at the good and the bad of Shelfster.
The Good
- Free users can store double what Evernote allows every month — That’s 80MB per month over 40, which is good for frequent picture uploaders who don’t want to pay the $5/month to Evernote. There will be a Pro feature in Shelfster as well, but it is not completely developed yet.
- More user friendly interface than Evernote (online or off) — or at least it feels that way as Shelfster adds a bit of pretty to counter Evernote’s straightforward utility feel. This will definitely appeal to users who value aesthetics with their function — or over function, as it were.
- The desktop tool makes it fairly quick to create new notes or to load images from your hard drive or the web clipper. It’s been recently updated too, but still has a few things to be desired — see the next section for what I mean.
- Searchable public notes using tags and the tag cloud tool. This makes it pretty easy to find information that you are interested in or that is popular in the community.
- Reputation tools allow for an increased likelihood of quality content to be found when searching.
- The ability to add modules (such as the Tag Cloud module) to your Dashboard indicates further extensibility — possibly community driven, which would be a fantastic addition to Shelfster’s longevity and usefulness.
- The ability to follow those that interest you in whole or by tag — a great way to get specific information, which can be much more difficult to come by on other platforms, like, say, Twitter. You can also copy the public notes of other people into your own Shelfster account to make sure you don’t lose them if the person disables their account.
- You can mark notes as public or private and share them as such on a per note (not noteBOOK, Evernote) basis
- Better clipper than Evernote — at least for me. I have never been able to get Evernote’s web clipper (desktop) tool to work the way I want. Shelfster’s clipping tools are nearly as good as OneNote’s clipper, working well both in and outside of the browser. Evernote could learn here, I think.
- You could keep research notes and your blog/microblog in one place. Due to the social aspects of Shelfster, you could potentially blog through your public notes, should you so choose, especially if Shelfster ever decided to go the personal subdomain route. Even if they didn’t, the right sharing tools could allow you to research, write and then post all from the same platform.
The Bad (bear in mind, they are still in private beta)
- No offline storage or search capability — Shelfster is web only folks! This is a huge ding for me. I recognize that cloud computing is where it’s at (or at least going), but not being able to take notes while away from a web connection is a problem. If you only use Shelfster to collect and share info from the web, then more power to you – but what if you want to look something up when your internet is down or you are away from wifi? This definitely puts Evernote light years ahead of Shelfster in my books.
- Doesn’t have that API connection to all of my useful services like Evernote does (at least, not yet). Once Shelfster becomes a fully developed tool, they may well release an API or develop a few key partnerships that will give them a leg up in this area. They will have to do something, as Evernote is expanding its connectivity with other software and services all the time, and that is a huge part of its appeal.
- No mobile apps as of yet. There are plans for an iPhone app (of course) and other mobile platforms for Shelfster, but nothing on the immediate horizon. As much of our lives are mobile, these days, getting a sense of how they plan to tackle this space is necessary to develop a complete picture of Shelfster’s usefulness.
- No text recognition for images. The lack of OCR will be an issue, especially after the release of a mobile app, which will lead to people taking pictures of restaurant menus and street signs, hoping to find them later by searching, like in Evernote. This is a necessity for on the go users!
- No GPS capability. This will be a necessity that will hopefully come with the mobile app. GPS will make Shelfster a much more powerful tool for collecting information wherever you are (one of the main reasons Evernote is so awesome).
- The bare minimum of sharing tools only. Actually, not even. Shelfster will connect you to Delicious, Facebook, Digg and Stumbleupon. That’s it. Not even a connection to Twitter for note-sharing. This is a serious and somewhat surprising oversight for a social service. Unless Shelfster is planning on being a direct rival to Twitter, which I doubt, they should probably get on this one quickly.
- Shelfster has the downside of being "yet another" social network — one more thing to find useful people to connect with. Deeper integration into existing popular networks (like Twitter) would be a good thing for Shelfster that could increase its appeal in the face of the dominating Evernote superpower.
Another comparison for Shelfster (and competitor to Evernote that we’ll cover in a later post) is Springpad, which also offers social following and sharing of notes. Springpad has been around for a bit longer than Shelfster, though, and allows users to customize the way they view their notes (different styles of notebook depending on topic; like recipe books, project management, meeting notes, etc.). That is a definite differentiator that could pull a specific audience type toward Springpad, while Shelfster has yet to fully realize their own niche.
Shelfster has a lot of potential and it is still developing. It’s definitely worth a try for those who are looking for an alternative to Evernote (or Springpad). If you want to give it that try, leave us a note in the comments (and make sure you use a contact-able email address) — we’ll be happy to give an invite to the first 10 people who raise a hand.
What do you think of Shelfster? Will it replace or supplement Evernote for you?
Josh says:
Hey Bobby, I’m totally dependent on Evernote, but love giving new services a try. Can I get an invite?
Thanks.
March 31, 2010 — 3:48 pm
Bobby Travis says:
Sure thing man! I’ll have the big man send you the link. :D
March 31, 2010 — 4:21 pm
Bobby Travis says:
Link sent! Enjoy!
March 31, 2010 — 4:36 pm
Josh says:
Got it, thanks. I’ll let you know how it goes.
March 31, 2010 — 8:48 pm
Josh says:
Well, after playing with it this weekend, I will say that it is a good first attempt. EN’s been around forever, so they have had time to develop it more. That said there are things that I can’t give up (OCR, off-line access, iPhone client…) which are deal breakers. I’ll keep an eye on the service but it’s got a way to go before it’s a possible alternative to EN (OneNote could get there some day). Either way thanks for letting us know about the new service and for the invite.
April 5, 2010 — 11:33 am
Bobby Travis says:
Awesome Josh!
Thanks for the feedback — I am very much in agreement with you on all points. Hopefully they will be doing some large moves forward in the next bit. If they can provide a tool that’s comparable to Evernote and has a better desktop client (the new version of Evernote ticks me off daily), I may well switch — if they can port notes that is…
.-= Bobby Travis´s last blog ..God of War III: You’ll Get Blood on Your Hands and Like It =-.
April 5, 2010 — 2:42 pm
Sam says:
I’m an Evernote fan too — but I’d love an invite to check it out.
March 31, 2010 — 10:08 pm
Bobby Travis says:
Link sent! :D
March 31, 2010 — 10:26 pm
will smith says:
i am using evernote, will try this one, thanks
April 1, 2010 — 11:50 am
Bobby Travis says:
Link be sent! :D
April 1, 2010 — 12:20 pm
Squeaky says:
Just knowing that there is no offline storage kills it for me. It sounds like a great app, but being useless without a connection means I’ll be staying with Evernote.
April 1, 2010 — 3:13 pm
Bobby Travis says:
I hear you, man. The service is pretty cool overall, but I can’t say I’ll be a user unless they provide both a really (really) good offline (syncing) desktop tool, and a way to port over from Evernote.
April 2, 2010 — 1:14 am
Evan Kline says:
I agree on both points. When I was first reading your review, one of the first things I thought was “I’ve got so much stuff in Evernote, unless there is a way to easily move it over, there’s just no way I could make the switch.”
April 2, 2010 — 3:24 pm
Scott Rough says:
I’ve been using Evernote ever since they started and really like the multiple ways to connect to my data. Recently I’ve been trying “Springpad” to see how it compares. Would love to try Shelfster to see what it can do. An iPhone app would be great, and like you said, probably on it’s way.
April 19, 2010 — 6:37 pm
Bobby Travis says:
Thanks for the comment Scott!
I sent you a link to try out Shelfster. Let us know what you think!
April 20, 2010 — 5:38 am
Shell says:
I’ve just started exploring Evernote and think comparing the two tools from a “newbie” aspect would be interesting. Thanks for opportunity!
April 24, 2010 — 1:22 pm
Bobby Travis says:
Link sent!
April 25, 2010 — 12:45 am
Doc says:
Bobby,
Evernote has its limitations, but the desktop and mobile apps are bulletproof and smooth for entering notes on the fly. For clipping, organizing and storing web content, nothing beats Diigo.
I’d like to try Shelfster.
Doc
April 3, 2011 — 7:54 pm
richardm says:
would love an invite. thanks!
April 4, 2011 — 3:50 am
Bobby Travis says:
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the interest! Shelfster has been open to the public for some time now. They have changed their focus a bit to trying to help bloggers and journalists be more effective, but the functionality is essentially the same. All you need to do is head on over to Shelfster.com and sign up! :)
April 5, 2011 — 2:13 pm
Carrynotes says:
Great information, you can also review http://www.carrynotes.com to remember, manage and save your learning’s for free. Its great for keeping track of what to-do.
December 7, 2011 — 7:13 am
NB Driggers says:
RIP Shelfster.
Here’s the popup that appears at the top of their site:
“As of 2013, we’ve stopped developing Shelfster and we won’t be able to offer support anymore. Thanks for understanding.
Shelfster domain name and all assets are for sale. If you are interested in buying them, please contact us at flavius@shelfster.com”
I find this disheartening. I joined but never used Shelfster, for many of the reasons stated above. However, in the last year they really improved their services targeted toward writers, including adding a “Publish to WordPress” option that made it a more desirable blogging platform than Evernote. I was mulling over separating my collection/curation items from my composition/blogging items to use Shelfster as a replacement for both Evernote and Windows Live Writer…..and now THIS.
So long Shelfster, I hardly knew ye.
January 23, 2013 — 1:52 pm