K-Praxis - Topic: Information Intelligence - Internet-Based Research: Tools for the Trade-Print

Internet-Based Research: Tools for the Trade
April 18, 2003

Internet-based research is becoming a regular feature of a knowledge worker's day and so is the need to have tools and solutions that would help knowledge worker/s to maximize the efficiency of Internet-based research. Technology and Product Reviews continues its series on the intelligent, automated or semi-automated personal Internet information management and information collaboration space .......

Ask an executive working for an organization, however big or small - and working for departments such diverse as marketing, customer support, business development - and he/she is very much likely to confirm that he/she is spending more and more time doing some type of research or the other. Many times, this research constitutes of digging out a tiny bit of information, as stock quotes or ticker symbols or, sometimes it is as extensive as to gain in-depth analyses, e.g., market segment, consumer trends, etc. The scenarios for using Internet-based research are myriad, varied and are well-known and do not require any further substantiation. More so with the advent of intelligent search engines like Google and Alltheweb, requirements for enterprise-wide Internet-based research are growing enormously. Realizing this importance and relevance of this type of research, corporations are either forming their own in-house research groups or are outsourcing Internet-based research activities.

With this growing importance and relevance of Internet-based research comes the need to structure, automate and institutionalize the enterprise Internet research needs and research collaboration. But when one "researches" for software, tools or solutions in this field (using the trial versions of the very same tools covered by this review!) one notices that there is no major player (except the upcoming product from Microsoft- OneNote) in this field - making it an interesting market remains to be tapped! As for Internet-based research solutions and services are concerned, most of the traditional market research companies have added Internet based research to their portfolio.

K-Praxis reviewed some of the tools available in this market space and found that only a few of them tackle the Internet-based research segment in a serious manner. Here are a few useful tools for the trade (listed in no certain order), tools listed here are trying to cater to the varying needs of the researchers - both individual-users as well as enterprise-users:

As the in-depth analysis proceeds, a few common features emerge:

Capturing, storing and organizing webpages other types files form the web
Store small snippets of information
Add notes, annotate pages, add categories and keywords
Search the documents or snippets captured and the notes added
Share all or part of this collection by various means
Make bibliographies
Highlight content culled from web-pages
Integrate all the information culled the web into a single page for easy reference

From the above tools, Catchtheweb resembles a slightly modified version of a web-pages-copying software - with exception of highlighting and organizing capabilities. Whereas, Netsnippets adds on some more interesting features like: more advanced metadata capture/creation, report generation, etc. Reference Manager caters to a different audience and is more suited for bibliographical information and reference management than for the online research segment. Thomson ISI has now launched a new software - WriteNote- which is specially designed for web-based research, but oriented towards academic users.

NetSnippets - from a user-oriented perspective - seems to be the most elegant and user-friendly of all these tools. If one goes by the promises made on the MS website, Microsoft's OneNote will definitely be an Interesting addition to the family of these research tools.

If you are an advanced Internet user, you might notice that CatchtheWeb type of applications are very similar to a numerous other applications available to cache or copy the webpages for offline browsing - although the scope of such applications could be extended to include some Internet research-supporting features, automating and facilitating Internet based research requires a different focus than the web-cashing or off-line browsing applications.

The other observation one could make is that, most of these tools are very academically oriented (quite evident in the case of the Reference Manager and even WriteNote),are more suited for varsity researchers (even the marketing pitch made by these companies seem to suggest that). But when it comes to a business researcher, he/she could expect much more from these type of tools.

It appears that there is more to the Internet-based research, than understood/captured by the tools mentioned here - making it an inviting prospect and a business opportunity for the software makers to tap into!

	Making sense of online textual information and information management technologies

	Internet-Based Research: Tools for the Trade April 18, 2003 Internet-based research is becoming a regular feature of a knowledge worker's day and so is the need to have tools and solutions that would help knowledge worker/s to maximize the efficiency of Internet-based research. Technology and Product Reviews continues its series on the intelligent, automated or semi-automated personal Internet information management and information collaboration space ....... Ask an executive working for an organization, however big or small - and working for departments such diverse as marketing, customer support, business development - and he/she is very much likely to confirm that he/she is spending more and more time doing some type of research or the other. Many times, this research constitutes of digging out a tiny bit of information, as stock quotes or ticker symbols or, sometimes it is as extensive as to gain in-depth analyses, e.g., market segment, consumer trends, etc. The scenarios for using Internet-based research are myriad, varied and are well-known and do not require any further substantiation. More so with the advent of intelligent search engines like Google and Alltheweb, requirements for enterprise-wide Internet-based research are growing enormously. Realizing this importance and relevance of this type of research, corporations are either forming their own in-house research groups or are outsourcing Internet-based research activities. With this growing importance and relevance of Internet-based research comes the need to structure, automate and institutionalize the enterprise Internet research needs and research collaboration. But when one "researches" for software, tools or solutions in this field (using the trial versions of the very same tools covered by this review!) one notices that there is no major player (except the upcoming product from Microsoft- OneNote) in this field - making it an interesting market remains to be tapped! As for Internet-based research solutions and services are concerned, most of the traditional market research companies have added Internet based research to their portfolio. K-Praxis reviewed some of the tools available in this market space and found that only a few of them tackle the Internet-based research segment in a serious manner. Here are a few useful tools for the trade (listed in no certain order), tools listed here are trying to cater to the varying needs of the researchers - both individual-users as well as enterprise-users: CatchtheWeb NetSnippets WriteNote and Reference Manager Microsoft OneNote As the in-depth analysis proceeds, a few common features emerge: Capturing, storing and organizing webpages other types files form the web Store small snippets of information Add notes, annotate pages, add categories and keywords Search the documents or snippets captured and the notes added Share all or part of this collection by various means Make bibliographies Highlight content culled from web-pages Integrate all the information culled the web into a single page for easy reference From the above tools, Catchtheweb resembles a slightly modified version of a web-pages-copying software - with exception of highlighting and organizing capabilities. Whereas, Netsnippets adds on some more interesting features like: more advanced metadata capture/creation, report generation, etc. Reference Manager caters to a different audience and is more suited for bibliographical information and reference management than for the online research segment. Thomson ISI has now launched a new software - WriteNote- which is specially designed for web-based research, but oriented towards academic users. NetSnippets - from a user-oriented perspective - seems to be the most elegant and user-friendly of all these tools. If one goes by the promises made on the MS website, Microsoft's OneNote will definitely be an Interesting addition to the family of these research tools. If you are an advanced Internet user, you might notice that CatchtheWeb type of applications are very similar to a numerous other applications available to cache or copy the webpages for offline browsing - although the scope of such applications could be extended to include some Internet research-supporting features, automating and facilitating Internet based research requires a different focus than the web-cashing or off-line browsing applications. The other observation one could make is that, most of these tools are very academically oriented (quite evident in the case of the Reference Manager and even WriteNote),are more suited for varsity researchers (even the marketing pitch made by these companies seem to suggest that). But when it comes to a business researcher, he/she could expect much more from these type of tools. It appears that there is more to the Internet-based research, than understood/captured by the tools mentioned here - making it an inviting prospect and a business opportunity for the software makers to tap into!