I made a new web discovery the other day. It’s a site called Findings.com. I use a kindle, used a nook before that, and read “real books” as well. I’m always looking for a good way to consolidate my highlights and notes. I think Findings.com shows potential. It is already the answer for Kindle highlights because after you import them you can share them on the major social media sites or copy and paste them to a notebook of your choosing. If importing nook highlights were part of findings.com it would be the solution there, but we aren’t so lucky.
The site has a great “help” section, but I figured I would summarize some of the functionality I have personally tested.
Getting Started – Importing Your Kindle Highlights
Create a new findings account at Findings.com.
Then, to import your quotes and notes from Kindle you follow three simple steps. Basically you use a bookmark bar java script while on the Amazon.com your highlights page. Depending on the number of highlights you are importing the process can be completed in less than five minutes.
Gather “Findings” as You Surf the Web
In addition to the easy Kindle import process you can highlight any text while browsing the internet, then hit the “findings” bookmark you’ve already created. From there you can post the web “finding” to your profile where you can share that with your findings followers or through social media.
Manually Enter Your Own “Findings”
On top of the Kindle and web functionality, let’s say you’re reading and have taken a paper note from somewhere. You can either type it in or type part of it in and if anyone else has already submitted the same finding you can “refind” their finding and have the clip stored on findings for future use. I haven’t fully tested this, but it might be a bit of a time saver when looking to consolidate a particular set of paper quotes.
Share Your Findings on Social Media
Once you have a few findings you can link social media accounts to your Findings.com account and with a couple of clicks publish any finding you want to the major social media hubs like twitter, tumblr, or facebook. I set up a tumblr account just to dump interesting “findings.” If you use twitter, the finding is abbreviated and a link is posted so people can click through to your Findings.com profile to read the full quote.
You Can Copy/Paste Findings
Drafting a blog post and looking to avoid typing a full quote? Use findings. The findings, once imported or otherwise captured, can be copied and pasted into blog posts or word processing files.
“Findings” Are Social
You have the option to make your “findings” public. This means other Findings.com users can view your public findings by clicking on your profile. It also means that other users may randomly stumble on your profile because they “found” the same quote you did. A quote in common might spark a new friendship, who knows?
I don’t have a terribly good selection of “findings” yet, because I haven’t compiled reading notes from sources other than Kindle. I am going to continue to mess around with the huge potential this site has. If you’re interested, you can visit my findings profile.
Share your experience with Findings.com in the comments.
Chris
Very interesting. I might have to try it out. Thanks for the useful tip. Any opinions on nook versus kindle? I own a kindle and love it, but have nothing but old school paper books to compare it to.
Read.Learn.Write
I use a Kindle now and I think the features between the two are basically the same. They are too similar for me to even say I favor one over the other.
I think Kindle handles highlights a bit better than nook right now.
Andrew Blackman
Thanks for linking to an interesting site! I like the idea of it, although I do find that sometimes a highlight can be a little confusing or not mean much when taken out of context. Still, I think you’re right that it has a lot of potential, and definitely something I’d like to explore. It could be very interesting from an author’s perspective, too, to see which parts of your book people are “finding”…
Read.Learn.Write
The out of context problem is certainly there, but maybe a highlight would encourage a reader to pick up a book they might not ordinarily read.
I debated whether I should throw all my highlights out there or just pick and choose. For now, I decided to just make them all available. Picking and choosing which go public was a bit more time consuming. Now, they’re all there in a searchable form for my research and writing. Of course, as you mention, there are a bunch that won’t mean anything to anyone except me!
I’m not sure what the designers of the site intended.
Corey Menscher
We want Findings to be whatever is most useful to you! We have people who are using it to share their favorite quotes, research books (Steven Johnson’s forthcoming book was heavily researched using Findings), backup their Kindles, etc.
Findings is different BECAUSE the quotes are decontextualized. There are several tools that let you talk within a book, but we’re not convinced that’s the best place for conversation. Sure, not all quotes will be useful to all people, but there’s nothing wrong with a little noise in an otherwise strong signal. We love feedback so let us know if you’d like to see any other features!
Read.Learn.Write
Very cool. Thanks for stopping by. I am loving the site. I can read it like a twitter feed with nothing but book quotes. I can use it as a research tool to find quotes. I have pulled in relevant quotes for blog posts. I am hooked. It’s rapidly becoming the site I visit first during Internet blocks.
Read.Learn.Write
Just saw this article, so I figured I’d add it here for reference: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how-social-reading-fragments-books-and-puts-them-back-together-on-findingscom.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29
[Video] Findings.com: A 12 Minute Walk-Through - Read.Learn.Write
[…] A 12 Minute Walk-Through On July 13, 2012 · Add Comment · On April 21, 2012 I wrote a post about findings.com to introduce the site. This video is a follow-up to that post. In this 12 minute video I explain how you can import your […]