Yahoo Search Pad has just been rolled out by Yahoo, and is designed to help you collect and collate internet research that you are carrying out.

What is Yahoo Search Pad?

Yahoo Search Pad is described by Yahoo as a tool to help you "organise research on the web". They put up a sample video of the search pad a while ago where you can see how it automatically detects that you are performing some research and asks you if you would like to take notes on the subject. They also have an official announcement on their Yahoo Blog which goes into detail of you you can:

• Save the sites you have visited, and any related notes on that site
• Save your results over multiple search sessions
• Share the results with friends and colleagues via a permanent URL
• Share your Search Pad documents on Facebook, Twitter, or Delicious

The Search Pad will be turned on by default and will simply pop up if it has intelligently guessed that you are doing research:




According to Yahoo, it will help you "collect, edit, organise, save, print and email your notes for immediate or future use" which I can see being a great benefit. Personally, I don't use Yahoo that much, but an application that stores your research could be very handy as it saves time and money documenting exactly what you have done, and what the results of that research was. I can see it coming in useful for research such as:

• Tracking and building a "competitors profile"
  
• Creating a collection of similar websites
• Building up references for blog posts
• Collating information between mobile and home research

Mark Smith
MDS Solutions - Darlington Web Design