8 Useful Online Applications For Note Taking
If you’re the average working person, you have to deal with loads of information every day. From phone numbers to messages to ideas, you have to organize information, and make sure you don’t forget it.
That’s the reason you probably keep a notebook to write everything down for later processing. Though the traditional pen-and-paper notebook has its advantages, an online application provides more features (multi-user collaboration, instant access from anywhere in the world, and so on). This is a list of 8 useful online applications for note taking. Enjoy being more productive!
You might also like this post from the past: 9 Online To-Do Lists For A More Productive Day
1. Google Notebook
Google Notebook is simple, useful, and fast. You can view your notebooks, organize them into sections, add notes of your own, add bookmarks, and more. You can also add clippings of web content (images, text, links etc) to your notes. Moreover, you can also collaborate with other people on a “notebook”. And when you’re done, you can publish a notebook to make it a web page, accessible to everyone with an internet connection. Also, you can drag and drop notes to organize them. Take the tour, and then try it out!
2. Notefish
Notefish is a relatively simple and no-nonsense note taking application. You have to sign up (which takes about half a minute), and start taking notes! Notefish also has a browser extension, which enables you to create a note from anything on a web page. Like in Google Notebook, you can also drag/drop your notes to arrange them. Moreover, you can tag your notes, to allow yourself and other people to find your notes quickly. Note that you can set privacy settings to allow only a few people to see your notes, or the entire internet. Also note that though you can allow people to see your note, they cannot edit the note. So there’s no collaboration. But this is a feature expected soon. Sign up for Notefish
3. Evernote
Evernote is one of the most popular note taking applications. And rightly so: it is easy to use, and is loaded with features. Evernote allows you to instantly and easily capture anything that you need jotted down right away. You can search your notes, make notebooks out of notes, and set filters for searching your notes. There’s even a “time band” that shows you your note activity around specific dates.
One of the best things about Evernote is accessibility. You can access your notes from a desktop app, the web, and the iPhone. How’s that for productivity? Also, you can synchronize your notes between these three options. Signup for Evernote
4. Yahoo! Notepad
Yahoo! Notepad is more minimal and simplistic. You are greeted with a two-column page, with all your notes listed on the right side, and all your folders and a search box on the left side. That is pretty much it. You can organize your notes under folders (like a notebook for other services). Sign up for Yahoo! Notepad
5. Springnote
Springnote is an OpenID enabled service, which is straight away a plus point, since you don’t have to sign up for it, if you have an OpenID account.
Springnote has a hoard of features, including personal (private, but you can share) and group (collaborative) notebooks. You get a subdomain (like http://listfied.springnote.com) for your notebook, and then you can add pages to that notebook (an example; feel free to add your thoughts 
). After writing your page, you can publish it, for all to see.
Another up vote for this service is that you also have kind of a feed reader for notes. You can keep track of your favourite notes by adding them to your Watch List. There are a lot more features: just take the tour! Sign up for Springnote
6. Notezz!
Notezz! is simple, quick, and useful. It really is no-nonsense. It doesn’t have the features boasted by services like Springnote, but it’s extreme simplicity shoots productivity into the sky. It’s simple. Seriously. Sign up for Notezz, and create notes right away!
7. Luminotes
Luminotes is a fairly simple and straight forward service. You have to sign up and then you can get to creating notes. Luminotes is more like a personal wiki. It has a different interface than that of other services, so you might need to get used to it first. But once you do, it’s everything you’ll ever need Sign up for Luminotes
8. xPad [Mac ONLY]
xPad (Mac only) is a straightforward note taking application for the Mac.
Note: this is not an online application. But it’s good enough to get a place in this list 
From the page: “With the category editor you can create and color-code categories, then quickly assign documents in the drawer. Documents can be sorted by name, date or category. Now you can efficiently manage limitless documents with color coding that provides a constant reminder of your organizational scheme.
You can quickly rename documents, delete one or many, and export a single, multiple, or all your documents in both Rich and Plain Text formats using both drag and drop or conventional panels. You can also instantly export to your iPod, allowing you to read your documents when you are away from your computer.”
Your Picks?
If you use a note taking application that’s not on this list, you can share it in the comments below
Image credit: ooOJasonOoo
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I love Google Notebook
I know you were going for online apps but Microsoft’s OneNote is a great offline app.
Google Notebook is great, but Google will no longer develop it. Now I can’t decide between Evernote and Ubernote… But I think that Evernote is a little better.
Another option might be one that supports note-taking either offline for security and privacy or online for additional online resources.
Psssh… Notepad FTW, baby!
A wonderful list of note taking apps. I love Google Notebook when taking notes online and Notepad when offline.
Google notebook is awesome. I don’t understand why they won’t continue to develop it though….
If you’re looking for a super fast, simple and versatile note taking app — you need to check out 3banana Notes.
Automatically sync your notes btwn your browser and your iPhone and/or Android. Tag them, insert URLs and images. Seamless sharing via Twitter, Facebook and email … and if you’re interested in connecting real world objects to your online notes — 3banana creates QR codes for your notes that you can print, apply — and scan whenever.
PS: Give it whirl! If you like it, please go vote! 3banana’s been nominated as the top Android productivity application: http://androidnetworkawards.com/
Google have now withdrawn Notebook!
( Support continues for the time being for existing users, but I’m looking for a replacement. Thanks for this list.
Zoho Notes looks good at http://www.zoho.com
Thinking outside the box, I use Freemind. It is excellent at taking notes. Very easy to use and organize. It is also non-linear so it helps when the speaker jumps around alot.
@Roger Zoho looks good.
@Johnny Freemind is indeed useful, but then, it’s not an online solution
Try my new NoteStorm, “available” online but is actually for use offline. NoteStorm is a free web application based on TiddlyWiki.
http://giffmex.org/experiments/NoteStorm.html
Dave
Thanks for the information! I never knew sites for online note taking existed!
What would you say about ThreeTags (http://www.threetags.com)?
thanks for your tips and suggestion after a long time i read this type of article. thanks again.
What about Zotero? I love it for citation and taking notes on or saving web pages (articles, blogs, videos, etc.). It’s made my academic life much happier : )
My preferred note taker is now Memonic – very similar to Google Notebook.
I can appreciate this list. Being a teacher-there is always opportunities to take notes. The sites lists here are very good sites for organizing and adding notes, and making notebooks.