Zoho Notebook Goes Beta

Zoho announced today that Zoho Notebook is now available as a beta. Their announcement page has a nice video worth a look if you’ve not checked this out recently. (previous mentions of Zoho Notebook here).

Remember Microsoft Binder with the old MS Office? To some extent, Zoho Notebook reminds me a lot of that — but on steroids, online, and shareable (with chat and collaboration to boot).

It has changed quite a bit since my first looks while it was still alpha. The interface has been streamlined and some of the options have been simplified (or removed). I had really hoped that the Zoho Planner task tracking aspects would get completed and make it to the beta, but alas… they’re gone. That’s a bummer.

Another bummer: It doesn’t love Opera. In Opera I see the hourglass a lot and I can’t move content on pages. I thought the servers were very slow — until I tried it in Firefox.

I’m still on the fence, similar to where I was last time I looked at it. There’s a lot of neat stuff here and it can do some interesting stuff. I’m just not quite sure where it fits for me and the way I do stuff.

It might make an interesting alternative to how I use Google Notebook. That’s mainly a pile of clippings to research and static text that I cut and paste into various forums.

It won’t replace how I use Microsoft OneNote, but a large part of the appeal there is the fact that I can be offline and still have my notes. When I’m online again, my machines all sync up.

Maybe an offline client for Zoho Notebook would be interesting…

Summary: I want to use it. I want to love it. But first I need to figure out what to do with it that wouldn’t feel contrived. Ideas? How are other folks using it?

Possibly Related posts:

1. Zoho Planner and Google Notebook Announcements – And FF Beta2 RC1
2. Zoho’s Latest — Notebook
3. Early Thoughts on Zoho Notebook
4. Zoho Writer Gets "True" Offline Mode
5. Zoho Meeting Public Beta