Why use UnderlineMe?
UnderlineMe is a web annotation tool. It supports text annotations and PDF annotations. More annotation formats such as Youtube annotations are on the way.
Since its release, UnderlineMe has gone through many additions including sync support, various colors for annotations, PDF annotations, etc.
UnderlineMe was built to address common pitfalls of existing annotation tools such as Weava, Memex, etc. This page explains why people migrate to UnderlineMe:
- Customer focused
- Ease of use
- Flexibility and polish
Customer focused
Almost every single feature since its inception has been on customer requirements. For instance:
- Users needed different colors to differentiate annotations - Buckets were added.
- Many users(and pre-sale inquires) needed sync support to carry their notes from/to different devices - Realtime sync support was added
- Some users wanted to annotate PDF files - PDF annotation was added.
Don't just take my word for it:
I still remember the initial days when I used to throw random feature requests at Shash. He never ignored any of them. We even had a call to discuss all the requests, as random or disjointed as they might be
— Lakshmi Narayanan (@_glnarayanan) September 24, 2020
Ease of use:
Product development has had a big focus on ease of use. From User Interface polishes to keyboard shortcuts, UnderlineMe has gained a lot of ground in this area.
There's also a commitment to build a highly polished interface which doesn't look like it was built in the 2000s.
Flexibility and polish
With UnderlineMe, there's a major focus on usability. For instance, our dashboard is built to browse through hundreds of notes. You can also select individual notes or all of them for export.
The front facing interface is highly polished. The highlights themselves are made to be legible even on dark backgrounds. There's a scroller to show the position of annotations(very useful on large webpages/pdfs).
Who uses UnderlineMe
- General purpose usage - Lots of users are using UnderlineMe just for keeping track of news articles, who-said-what, random musings, etc.
- As a analysis tool - Some users are using this to track current world events and build a timeline based on a particular event or object(Eg: covid-19, trump, competitor company's data, etc). Their use is mainly geared towards their work (journalism, in-house qualitative analysis, law firm, etc)
- As a tool for content creators - Some users are using this to find ideas and gather content for their newsletters, blogs, etc.
- As a annotation tool for students - Some users are also students who use this to create easy to digest snippets of material for their study.
Right now, product development is focused on building a solid core right now. This includes things like sturdiness, usability and reliability.
Once that is nailed, the goal is to turn this into a sustainable business so UnderlineMe can survive in the long run.
