MindMeister 2.0: Flexible Web-Based Mind Mapping
April 17th, 2008 (11:00am) Mike Gunderloy 6 CommentsTweet This
We liked MindMeister the last time we took a look at it, about a year ago. Now their 2.0 version is out, and the tool is better than ever. While some of the functionality is reserved for their premium upgrades, there’s still substantial value in the free edition.
The core of the application remains largely unchanged. You can still quickly create a new mindmap without lifting your hands from the keyboard; shortcut keys let you add, delete, and move between nodes easily. Nodes can have formatted text and icons to help you identify them, and you can arrange them on the drawing canvas to group them or otherwise show relationships.Each node now has two additional chunks of information, though. First, you can track a node as a task, with priority, completion percentage, due date, and owner. The priorities and progress are shown in special icons on the mind map, and your own tasks are identified by checkmarks. This lets you use MindMeister as a lightweight project management tool, and makes progress more obvious when you’re working through a list of to-do items. It would be nice to get some table-based reporting out of this feature in the future.
Nodes can also have attachments. Image attachments can be previewed on your mind map, and any attachment can be downloaded. Right now this is available to all users, but in 30 days they’ll make it a premium-only feature.
There are some web tie-ins as well. You can jump from any node to a del.icio.us or Google or Wikipedia search. You can also ask for nodes to be automatically hyperlinked or annotated based on web search results. Other small improvements include showing notes on PDF export copies of your mindmap and support for OpenID and Paypal.
In addition, MindMeister supports inserting text into your default map from a Mac Dashboard, Windows Sidebar, or Yahoo! widget, and offline use via Google Gears. The offline functionality is limited to your first 30 days of use unless you sign up for a premium account.
The free edition is limited to 6 mind maps. When you step up to the $4/month premium edition, you can have unlimited maps, attachments and offline use, export to FreeMind and MindManager, and SSL encryption. Either way, this is an inexpensive tool for mind-mapping, and if they continue to add features at this pace it will just keep getting more useful.
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The previous version was hard to use – especially lame for collaboration (which usually is the bottom line for web apps). The user interface was a lot better on mindomo.com, they also did not have many limits on basic account with quite a lot of functionality. Will check the new version out though, as mindomo has no simultaneous collaboration – which is a pain.
I used a mindmap tool once, and it seems I just don’t have the time to use “yet antother” tool to dump my knowledge into. I want to see one of these that I can intricately connect to tools that I already use. My blog, my bookmarks, my social apps, my phone, my contacts, etc….
I ditched NovaMind, my desktop app, for Mindmeister half a year ago and I’m extremely happy with it. The new release confirms it.
Just some minor issues with openID and notifications for collaborators.
I use mindmeister almost since the beginning, love it. Used mindmanager before, its very powerfull, but I prefere the simplicity and the great collaboration features of mindmeister.
The addition of task info and file attachments makes MindMeister 2.0 much more of a serious business tool. Also, be sure to check out the new “Wunderlink” and “Wundernote” features in this new version (described in my blog here).
The developers also made improvements to MindMeister’s “Geistesblitz” tools, which enable you to add content to a map from Mac Dashboard, Windows Sidebar or Yahoo! Widgets Desktop. They have now added email support and a Geistesblitz Activity for Internet Explorer 8. With email support, you can send single Geistesblitzes or entire mind maps via email.
I still don’t “get” the process of mind-mapping. Why is this useful? In what ways can it be used in our lives?