Starting to work on the tech in 2021 and founded in 2022, Glasp is a platform used in the world of online research. Dubbed as a social learning log by the founder, Kazui Nakayashiki, the Greatest Legacy Accumulated as Shared Proof, abbreviated as Glasp, is a social web highlighter. Currently used by more than 120,000 users globally, this platform aims to make online research more efficient. The founder’s vision is to visualize everyone’s unique contribution to human knowledge history.
Wait, what does Glasp do?
In simple words, Glasp wants to help you organize and keep track of your research work and ideas. To help understand the concept behind Glasp, imagine sitting in a public library with everyone preparing for different exams and subjects. As each individual progresses with their study, they take notes and write important things down.
Now, let’s say all these people are preparing from three or five books but can borrow only one book at a time. If they have to refer to something said in the first book, they will have to go back and borrow it again. Once they’re done studying, they will pick up their notes and leave the library. Their research and findings will remain limited to them, but if they could’ve helped someone else studying the same thing, if it was possible to share.
With Glasp everyone in this library (the Internet) can take notes and highlight texts, quotes, and ideas. All this is automatically stored in one place: your profile. You can easily go to your profile anytime, and you can also organize your material using tags. And you can share your profile with other Glasp users, who can view everything in your library, interact with it, and continue to benefit from your research and ideas.
So, the Glasp beta allows users to highlight texts and videos on the web and also makes those highlights accessible to other Glasp users. Users can highlight texts, add notes, and share their research with other users, which deepens the learning. Each time you take notes, it updates your personal research library which is accessible from your profile.
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Glasp users can also interact and follow one another to share learnings and experiences and connect with like-minded people. In addition to all of this, Glasp also has AI features like writing assistance, personalized summaries, YouTube summaries, and digital clones. As for the pricing, all features offered by Glasp are free as of now and they have not yet designed a business model for monetization of these services. Their competitors include tools such as Weava, and Liner.
How to use Glasp?
Glasp seems very easy to use. First, download the tool from either the Chrome Web Store or Mac App Store. Then, log in to it from the extension menu and activate your account. From hereon, you can start using Glasp on any site you want. Simply select the text that you want to highlight, and a highlighter will pop up with various color options. Next, choose your favorite one and start highlighting it.
Also, as mentioned above, everything you highlight and take notes of can be saved on your profile page and Glasp home feed. Then, you can share it on various other platforms like Twitter. Glasp could be a useful tool for students, researchers, educators, and anyone who struggles to keep uniquely identifiable tabs on content while researching. If given the chance, it could mean a change in the field of online research.
Photo credit: The feature image is symbolic and has been done by Christopher Isak with Midjourney for TechAcute.
