After posting about Linkwok on HN a few months ago, we received tons of feedback, mostly directed at clarifying its workflow and UI. So with that in mind, please welcome the new and improved Linkwok: A complete Search to Conclusion package.
Linkwok is designed to save you considerable time, effort and often money in conducting your research either as an individual or a team.
Use the FREE web app, and its accompanying Chrome extension to move efficiently through your research by seeing what others have found useful, organising individual elements on a canvas and presenting it over Powerpoint.
We are a very small team of dedicated developers trying to create something that is useful and free. We believe that we've come far, but have a long way to go Please help us with any feedback that will help us make Linkwok work better for you.
PS: We're hard at work creating a better video to help explain everything better :p
You're right- we didnt focus on the ability to see maps that others have made. We reckoned that until we get a particular user base, pretending like Linkwok has a network effect would be a waste of time and resources. Right now, there is a very small hook to make this point- one of the search engines listed is Linkwok- where you can search for maps that others have made. We have metatags and other stuff built and kept ready so that the maps can be trawled by Google and other engines too. We expected that this 'ecosystem' would come into its own after we had some solid traction and focusing on that instead of creating traction might be a waste of resources today.
As for use cases, a common one would be planning a holiday with your significant other or friends- more time goes in communicating suggestions and feedback over email, Word files and the like- Linkwok would be an easy platform to send these back and forth. Here's an example: https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=cWzkjEghEgtqewHuP
Another example is creating an at a glance overview of something complicated, namely the mess of kingdoms in George RR MArtin's Game of Thrones series: https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=cWzkjEghEgtqewHuP
Teachers can also use Linkwok to give more information about a topic. Here's an example where a friend wanted to teach his class about the history of Linux: https://app.linkwok.com/map?id=gNEtYqPbJyacbEfmd
And you're right- search engines do a great job of giving you an answer, as long as the answer is encapsulated within one statistic (weather in NYC, Welsh corgi personality, etc) but anything that requires even a modicum of research, finding the 'right' site is increasingly more difficult...
Hey notduncansmith, thanks for the candid (and detailed) reply. The target is to spend more time creating a canvas that can be used to collaborate and present on than juggling several apps- tabs, Notepad, Word, Excel, Powerpoint.
The end goal, our vision is to become an ecosystem of knowledge canvases (a wikipedia of 'mindmaps'). 6 billion searches are made every day just on Google, out of which 90% have already been repeated within the last 24 hours. How awesome would it be if you did not need to go through the haystack to find the needle that somebody else already found?
That said, the concerns you and others have pointed out are genuine and we do need to address them.
I will be taking down this post in an hour or two to resolve the 500 error that has suddenly crept up. Thank you all for the feedback... :)
To (most) of the comments regarding not knowing what to do, Linkwok is all about DRAGGING AND DROPPING search results, annotations, files from your computer and more to the canvas on the right side.
It has a few similarities to mindmaps, but where those force you to concentrate on creating, with Linkwok, you get to concentrate on organising.
But honestly, I think we make an important and incorrect assumption- we try to revolutionise by evolution.
Why put smartphones on your wrist or your head and call it a revolution? Why make an app that is a Tinder or a Wikipedia or a Google for something else and call it a revolution?
The real revolutions are going to be things that havent been thought of yet, in any manner. In the meanwhile, we have this hyper-accelerated evolution- lets focus on lowering the barriers for entry...
Exactly! Good point- I think people forget that...
Ever wonder why speed skaters have some of the most muscular legs around? Its simply the number of unencumbered 'squats' they continue to do over long periods of time while practising.
Sure you can lose weight quickly with HIT and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) but we need a lot more study to confirm that they are genuinely 'better for health'. At the moment, they're just a variation...like variations :)
A Facebook/Twitter account is basically an opportunity to publish your 'digital ego'.
Its the reason apps like Instagram exist- they allow you to polish your images so that you can basically tell the world, "hey look how much fun I'm having, and you're missing out"
Facebook/Twitter/ in fact a lot of these publishing platforms exist to weed out the mundane parts of your life so that what is public is the most exciting, jealousy inducing 'Cliffs Notes'.
Essentially, thanks to them, when you die, people will be able to look at your profile or your tweets and mourn, "that person lived such an interesting life."
Whatever you opine upon reading this is your answer to your question (as I see it)...
Linkwok is designed to save you considerable time, effort and often money in conducting your research either as an individual or a team.
Use the FREE web app, and its accompanying Chrome extension to move efficiently through your research by seeing what others have found useful, organising individual elements on a canvas and presenting it over Powerpoint.
We are a very small team of dedicated developers trying to create something that is useful and free. We believe that we've come far, but have a long way to go Please help us with any feedback that will help us make Linkwok work better for you.
PS: We're hard at work creating a better video to help explain everything better :p