This has now been published on the ALT Blog:
Are we finally seeing a revolution in document creation?
It has been over a decade since Google Wave made it last splash. So much promise and excitement that ultimately didn't go anywhere.
But now the promise is being fulfilled by new products that not only build on what Google Wave was offering but take this even further. There are many players in this space but the ones that stand out to me are:
What they do is create fully integrated and dynamic documents that combine the features of a word processor, database, spreadsheet and project management system. They each approach it from a different perspective but what they share is ease of use and focus away from standalone documents or notes.
Anybody who's ever tried to create an Access database or even embed an Excel spreadsheet in a Word document would be amazed by the power of these tools and the way in which they made it incredibly usable.
In fact, anyone who is using Excel to keep track of records, should immediately have a look at one of these tools. But they even threaten established players like Evernote or Onenote for note taking, or project management tools like Trello or Asana.
Even though, they are very similar in what they do and what they can be used for, all three have slightly different emphasis. Since starting this survey, I have fully switched to Notion, and thus have the most to say about it. In fact, this entire blog post was written in Notion and I've also compiled a list of ‣ and ‣. I made them public with comments enabled.
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Notion is the tool that a lot of productivity experts are buzzing about. The company was founded in 2016 and the 2.0 release that put it on the map happened in 2018. It is really a project management and collaboration tool but its primary purpose is to take over from the likes of Evernote as the natural place to keep notes on one's life. Next to Notion, Evernote looks old and tired (although it looks old and tired even on its own).