Google (News - Alert) announced last week it is discontinuing Google Reader, a Web feed aggregator, on July 1. However, the search engine giant seems to have plans up its sleeve -- on Sunday, the Web saw a temporary teaser of Google Keep, an unreleased note-taking app, before it disappeared shortly after.
Google Keep resembles Evernote (News - Alert) and Google Notebook, which allowed users to clip and organize information from the Web but was discontinued in January 2009. Android Police managed to take some screenshots and play around with the service before it disappeared from the Internet.
The service offers a list of notes, and users can color-code them, save pictures, make checklists and archive notes. It is a tool for taking notes and saving and organizing them online. One screenshot reveals an “Add to Keep” function for websites, making it a single, unified platform for discovering and keeping tabs on content on the Web.
There’s a mobile Web interface and supposedly an Android (News - Alert) app, but that hasn’t surfaced yet. When Google Notebook was still around, Evernote was quick to offer integration with a Google Notebook importer tool.
Image via Android Police
Last July, Google accidentally included a screenshot in an official Google+ post that included a “save to Google Keep” label. There’s no word on if and when we can expect to see the actual launch of Google Keep.
Besides Evernote, there are a few other options when it comes to online note-taking services. PrivNote, Listhings, Jjot, UberNote, Penzu, Springnote, Yahoo Notepad and Memonic are all options for note taking on the Web, so there is clearly a demand for being able to take notes online and access them anywhere, from any device.
