September 5th, 2010 by rs
Mere triage does not stem the flow
GMail promises that its recently launched Priority Inbox will help you tackle information overload. But sorting messages by priority does not make them go away—putting the juiciest pancake on top does not make the stack any lower!
Improve the speed of reading and processing
Really dealing with information overload means processing emails more efficiently. It means skimming emails much faster, and confidently discarding unimportant messages altogether. This is where Topicmarks can help.
Mail-in to Topicmarks and you only ever read a summary
Just forward any unimportant message from your inbox to your Topicmarks mail-in address, and Topicmarks sends you back a quick summary. Confidently skim the summaries and pick the few messages you really have to read. Safely discard all the rest—if you ever need them again, they are safely stored in your Topicmarks brain forever.
Tags: brain, discarding, email overload, flow, gmail, information overload, mail-in, messages, pancake, priority inbox, quick summary, safe, sorting, stack, top, topicmarks, triage, unimportant
Posted in Information overload: | No Comments »
September 2nd, 2010 by rs
Jijin from China found that Topicmarks produces better summaries than any of his classmates.
“I was very happy to receive this summary. My teacher tells me that among all the students, my summary is the best one.”
It is great to see that Topicmarks is helping so many students in the classroom. If even teachers grade Topicmarks summaries better, why would anyone still bother to skim a document without it?
Tags: anyone, china, classmates, classroom, document, grade, jijin, students, summaries, summary, teachers, topicmarks
Posted in User feedback of the week: | No Comments »
August 30th, 2010 by rs
This week’s Weekly Topicmarks update is the first edition of a new, much more personalized format. For the first time, it reveals your Brain expanding live.
Topicmarks Weekly Update Entirely Renewed
Before, Topicmarks sent you regularly sent updates and tips in one-size-fits-all articles. Now we also want to show you how your “Topicmarks brain” is learning and evolving. This week’s update is the first to integrate those amazing new features.
Reveals Your Brain, Your Texts, Your Facts, Your Knowledge
As you can see in this week’s update, every update now contains an amazing dynamic overview of all the concepts and keywords foremost in your “Topicmarks brain”. You can see where your knowledge is growing most strongly, and discover topics that are gradually entering your brain. There is also an overview of the latest texts you uploaded, statistics of how many facts you have gathered, and much easier ways to retrieve your password or update your profile.
Use Facebook to Let Us Know What You Think
Thousands of users are helping to make Topicmarks a better service every day, and we’re also looking forward to your comments on this fantastic new update. Do you like the new features of the update? Is it helping you to see facts in a new format, and find new topics of interest?
Tags: amazing, articles, awesome, brain, day, dynamic, entirely renewed, expanding, facebook page, first edition, new, new format, one-size-fits-all, overview, statistics, texts, thousands, topicmarks, update, updates, users, ways, week, weekly
Posted in Innovation of the week: | No Comments »
August 28th, 2010 by rs
All kinds of users all over the world are using Topicmarks to understand a large variety of texts. Some even invoke our help with their relationships!
A long and puzzling message from a girl
Drew from Florida received a very long email from a girl he liked, and was completely puzzled what she meant with it. He emailed it to Topicmarks, and found the results in his mailbox in a few minutes. He took one look at the keyword cloud and understood her meaning exactly.
Immediately understood with Topicmarks
“Some women can tell you thousands of things and still not make themselves clear,” Drew wrote to us, “but now that I’m powered with Topicmarks, I get to see what she really wants. Within no time I had impressed her so much that she couldn’t imagine being with another guy. Thank you Topicmarks!”
Understanding text quickly: not just for the left brain
In an age of emails, messages and tweets, understanding text well instantly is crucial for performance much beyond the academic realm. While Topicmarks may not be good at understanding poetry, we can certainly help with deciphering long love letters. Email it in, glance at the result… and live happily ever after!
- Have a special story on how you use Topicmarks? Tell us on our Facebook page
Tags: academic realm, email, emails, few minutes, florida, girl, glance, guy, keyword cloud, love letter, performance, poetry, relationship, results, texts, topicmarks, understanding text, users
Posted in User feedback of the week: | No Comments »
August 25th, 2010 by rs
Topicmarks users are uploading so many different texts that some are bound to stretch the limits. One thing that we definitely didn’t design Topicmarks for is understanding poetry.
High school students with poetry assignments
Every now and then, somebody sends a poem through Topicmarks expecting to find its meaning. We found that most of these users are high school students with an assignment to interpret a poem. We’re very flattered to see students trust Topicmarks so much!
Topicmarks doesn’t work well with short texts or fiction
Unfortunately, we designed our technology particularly for long and dense non-fiction texts. Summarizing fiction is a completely different challenge, since a good abstract tries to summarize the deeper meaning of the author. Poems are both full of double meaning and too short to summarize.
The secret with poetry is that you can’t go wrong
If you’re a student, use Topicmarks for all text books and papers, for notes and syllabuses, for famous authors and your own writing. But here’s a tip for poetry: since it’s about feelings, there is never a wrong answer. So let go of computer analytics, and just write down what you feel when you read the poem. This is all your teacher really wants, and guys, you’ll impress the girls with it too!
Tags: books, challenge, computer analytics, different texts, double meaning, famous authors, feelings, fiction, girls, high school students, notes, papers, poem, poems, poetry, somebody, summarizing, syllabus, Technology, topicmarks, trust, understanding
Posted in Understanding Topicmarks: | No Comments »
August 22nd, 2010 by rs
Topicmarks users have an easy way to talk to each other and to product support team.
The product incorporates a Get Satisfaction customer community as part of its public beta. Get Satisfaction lets Topicmarks users obtain answers, share ideas, and connect with each other and with the Topicmarks product team directly.
“Being in close touch with customers is an absolute prerequisite for our success.” said Roland Siebelink, the incoming CEO of PhiScape Ltd, the makers of Topicmarks. “Get Satisfaction is the next step in customer relations and support. It encourages customers to provide open and transparent feedback, and we’re eager to see how they respond, especially as they experience our revolutionary machine reading and knowledge integration tools for the first time.”
“Topicmarks’ integration with Get Satisfaction is a natural fit,” said Karl Dawson, CTO and President of PhiScape. “Both Get Satisfaction and PhiScape are committed to creating friendly and compelling online user experiences.”
Topicmarks customers can access the Get Satisfaction community directly from the “feedback” and “support” links on the Topicmarks web site or directly via the Getsatisfaction Topicmarks community
Tags: absolute prerequisite, answers, ceo, close touch, company's product team, cto, customer community, customer relations, dawson, experiences, feedback, first time, get satisfaction community, ideas, incoming ceo, integration tools, karl dawson, knowledge integration, knowledge integration tools, machine reading, makers, march 12th, natural fit, new get satisfaction customer community, new way, next step, part, phiscape ltd, president, product team, public beta, revolutionary machine, revolutionary machine reading, roland siebelink, satisfaction, satisfaction community, satisfaction customer community, share ideas, support, support links, topicmarks customers, topicmarks integration, topicmarks product team, topicmarks users, topicmarks web site, user experiences
Posted in Features | No Comments »
August 20th, 2010 by rs
Sometimes Topicmarks cannot read the file you tried to upload, and therefore cannot process it. The error message will tell you what is wrong with your document, e.g.
Name: myfilename.pdf
URL: file://myfilename.pdf
Processing error: Resource contains no text available for processing.
This error, typically occurring with PDF files, means that the PDF only contains images of text, not computer-readable text.
The solution is to have it “recognise” the text first with OCR (optical character recognition), by using any OCR software or by uploading it to web-based solutions like Evernote.
Tags: character recognition, clue, computer-readable text, document, editable, error message, evernote, images, ocr software, optical character recognition, pdf files, processing, readable, resource, scanned, scanner, searchable, short error message, topicmarks, web-based solutions
Posted in Frequently Asked Questions | No Comments »
August 18th, 2010 by rs
Topicmarks help you separate between:
- the few texts you really need to read, and
- the many texts that you just need to review-and-file.
When determining the relevance of a text in your email in tray, for example, don’t skim it
yourself but just forward it to Topicmarks. Then review the
synopsis and text knode instead. This is <30 times faster.
Tags: determine, document dashboard, faster, need, relevance, review, review-and-file, separate, skim, synopsis, text knode, texts, topicmarks, upload
Posted in Features | No Comments »
August 15th, 2010 by rs
Lots of new feedback on Topicmarks this week, and as the “back-to-school” season comes up, so students and parents are looking into Topicmarks as a learning tool.
JRT from Quezon City (Manila, Philippines) discovered Topicmarks through Google. “I feel I cannot find another website as good as Topicmarks […] It gave me freedom from worrying about my child’s school projects […] in English.”
In this world of global information, being able to digest English texts efficiently is a crucial skill for students of any age. We are delighted that so many are finding Topicmarks useful in their education!
Tags: back-to-school, crucial, digest, Education, efficient, english, feedback, freedom, globalization, Google, learning, Manila, parent, parents, Philippines, project, pupils, Quezon, school, school project, season, skill, student, students, tool, topicmarks, useful, worry, worrying
Posted in Education, feedback | No Comments »
August 12th, 2010 by rs
Most information overload occurs in your email in-box. Who wants to read a looong email or a dense attachment when you have so much to do already?
Get a summary directly from your email inbox
With Topicmarks, you can now summarize a text right from your in-box. Just forward your email to your own special email address, and Topicmarks does the rest: analysing, storing and then sending you back the summary. All without manual uploading or even logging in. Get the gist in a few minutes, and retain all facts forever.
The first attachment or the body text
For now, Topicmarks summarizes the first attachment found in the emails it receives. If there is no attachment, it summarizes the body text of the email. If there is enough demand, we plan to have Topicmarks read multiple attachments in the near future.
Add a special address to your address book
Get started by finding out the secret email address that uniquely identifies your account. You find it in the “Profile” section. Store it in your address book and then forward any looong email or attachment to that address to get a summary. Summarizing an email becomes as easy as forwarding it to a colleague.
Tags: account, address book, attachment, attachments, body text, colleague, dense, email address, email attachment, emailin, enough demand, facts, few minutes, first attachment, get, gist, in-box, in-tray, information overload, manual uploading, multiple attachments, near future, profile, rest, right, secret email address, section, special address, summary, text, topicmarks, uploading
Posted in Features, Technology | No Comments »
