Live data from Hacker News

A different approach to note-taking and research

ummm.co

11–20 of 50 posts

Re: A different approach to note-taking and research

#13
Screenshots looks nice. Maybe you should focus more on the differentiating aspects? The note-taking application market is extremely crowded.

(which is indicative that the issues are human, rather than technical — people feel the need to record stuff, but are not really able to stick with it and get good results; I have a stack of paper notebooks where I tried different systems as a physical manifestation; the software cemetery is less visible, but no less extensive. I may have found my final system, but who knows how long it will stick…)

Are you targeting per-project, short-to-medium term notes? If you have “second brain” ambitions, and choose to provide a hosted solution with no standardized format for export, you have to have some sort of long-term commitment. I do not see how that commitment can be taken in a way that is credible.

Re: A different approach to note-taking and research

#14
post #3

I didn't see if it was possible to self-host. Is that a planned feature?

Hey, I'm the creator of Ummm. Not really on the roadmap anytime soon, but it's also still early for the product! Right now it's more about getting a grasp of what people want out of it, squashing some bugs and improving the UX further — before moving development further into a specific direction.

>Right now it's more about getting a grasp of what people want out of it

Looks like at least some people for sure want a way to store things locally and in current setup the only option they have is to ' want to be out of it'.

Re: A different approach to note-taking and research

#15
What I learned from visiting the site: It's an app that lets you take notes horizontally - apparently there's a claim that this is an advantage. I'm supposed to buy a subscription for more than Evernote costs and hand over all of my data, which may or may not be encrypted, to a random person on the internet. Sorry if this is harsh, but the website didn't make its case to me, and this is an extremely crowded space.

Re: A different approach to note-taking and research

#16
post #13

Screenshots looks nice. Maybe you should focus more on the differentiating aspects? The note-taking application market is extremely crowded. (which is indicative that the issues are human, rather than technical — people feel the need to record stuff, but are not really able to stick with it and get good results; I have a stack of paper notebooks where I tried different systems as a physical manifestation; the softwar…

I learned a lot from this post. it’s humble, gives compliments and addresses key points the product falls short of.

I upvoted the first harsher comment but then saw how you. framed it. I’ll try to give criticism more like yours in the future. thanks.

Re: A different approach to note-taking and research

#17
post #3

I didn't see if it was possible to self-host. Is that a planned feature?

Hey, I'm the creator of Ummm. Not really on the roadmap anytime soon, but it's also still early for the product! Right now it's more about getting a grasp of what people want out of it, squashing some bugs and improving the UX further — before moving development further into a specific direction.

Have you consulted with any researchers on this project? I would suggest it would be a good idea to ask your target audience what kind of pain points you can solve for them, and I think your product would benefit greatly. As someone who would be your stated target audience, I can’t see anything here that would benefit me. As an example of my greatest pain point when conducting research would be organizing all of my research sources. The mind maps and cross references are a good start in this direction, but there are tools out there that do a much better job and are free. You’ll need to explain why this is better than all of those.

Re: A different approach to note-taking and research

#18

For a local filesystem alternative similar to this, Obsidian + Sliding Panes (Andy Matuschak Mode) plugin is similar.

Oh that's what this is doing. Thank you for the explanation; I couldn't quite figure out what they meant by "take notes horizontally" until I saw this comment. It just looked like dual panes at first.

I guess it's hard to convey with static screenshots

Post reply on HN