Show HN: Linkwok – Picking up where search engines left off

> 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 example use cases that I saw on the site didn't really convey this - also, I didn't see a "presentation mode" or anything similar in the app, maybe I missed something in the app that would support this?

Also, can you give me an exact use case that would be better fulfilled by LinkWok than any other tool (and why LinkWok is the best tool for that job)? I hope you have a concrete vision of someone solving at least one specific problem in your app - otherwise, you have bigger problems than a 500 error.

> 6 billion searches are made every day just on Google, out of which 90% have already been repeated within the last 24 hours.

Source? I tried Googling around for it, couldn't find any articles that substantiate that claim.

> 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 would be great. Unfortunately, all this app appears to do is create a new haystack - one that I will probably use a search engine to discover and subsequently mine for information.

Also, from your about page:

> until now there has been no way to take advantage of the (almost absolute) fact that somebody out there has already found what you are looking for.

In fact, there has: search engines. Search engines order the results by what it detects are the best answers to questions you have. In a surprisingly large number of cases, Google can answer the question I type into the Omnibar without me even having to click on a link!

Check them out. The idea that we seem to be failing to convey is that in most cases of casual research online it ends up taking hours and is not completely optimized. Also content ownership online is near impossible for the lay user - For e.g. Who has the time to author a wiki - but what if you could just drag and drop what's relevant and add some notes here and there, add connections to show a flow of thought and share it with someone. I used to teach engineering undergrads and signed up to work on Linkwok only cause I saw the value - Imagine lecture notes and lesson plans as Linkwok searchmaps! Where teachers and students can interact as well.

We get that search is private so by default everything IS PRIVATE on Linkwok but then content authorship is NOT generally private. So Linkwok caters to that as well.

Consider this: 1. When users search online and you're distracted or switch to a different task, it takes them a while to get their bearings with all those tabs etc. Or when you bookmark, unless you open the page you often don't know what it was. Here, every page can be stored as a visiting card - edit the name and description to something you remember 2. Users often don't remember how they got to a particular page - what they searched for when they found it. On Linkwok every page you add gets tagged with the search query. 3. There are several use cases where people need to collaborate when doing research and Linkwok directly caters to this. 4. It brings content authorship to the lay user cause it is supposed to be simple - ideally - evidently we need to fix the UI and UX a bit. 5. People search for similar things - If someone has found and curated the information for that topic why not continue from where they left off?

Finally, to my mind there's three kinds of searches that occur - broadly. 1. Where the user searches for something, the first link is all he needs and he's done. Linkwok is not for this case. 2. Where a user needs to iterate queries until he gets what he needs - Linkwok can come in mighty handy here. 3. Where one answer is not enough -one link is not enough - And here too Linkwok comes in handy

And if Linkwok searchmaps can come in handy for 2 and 3 - won't a searchmap also become a one stop for case 1 as well? That's what we're going for.

We're strangely positioned as an App. I will admit. But we do believe that there's value and hope that we can somehow convey this.

You asked for links, I know I have said more. But I did feel the need to add all that explanation cause we're obviously failing with our communication.

As for the name - The idea was that it's a wok(cooking pan) for what you find on the web.

And the video - I agree entirely. Any app should be simple enough that when you get there you know what to do. Unfortunately either we need to find a new UI/UX and Interactions guy or more likely it's a process to get a completely intuitive UI and we're working towards that. I'm just glad we hadn't posted the last version on HN - I'll admit it was appalling! As one commentator on Twitter said - it's like Prezi for research so please give it another go. There's a feedback button in the app that you can use. Thanks.