Noodzy is a free web site program, currently in Beta, that allows you to use “#tags” to automate tasks that you would normally have to do manually on the web, such as post a Facebook notification or a Tweet, send email or check your inbox, search Google or YouTube, just to name a few, all from the very same place. It cuts down on mouse clicks, key strokes, and basically provides you a fast and simple way to do frequent, repetitive procedures.
Noodzy is a new web site that I actually had a tough time figuring out at first. The concept is so simple that it eluded me until I read more about it in their labs page. Once I did, however, I was quite impressed with the concept, at least. Anyone who is familiar with gaming, especially older games on the computer, will know what a macro is.
Essentially, a macro is a shortcut to activate a pre-defined series of commands, set off by a single command in a kind of chain reaction. This means you can do many things in sequence by giving one single command, and it is very handy for people who have to do repetitive tasks on a regular basis. When I worked for a particular financial institution I actually created an entire book of macros that increased their productivity by more than 30%.
Noodzy, in essence, is a web site that will allow you to use macro-like tags or commands for things that you do on a regular basis on the web. That explanation sounds simple but it can be complex when you’re actually trying to use it. Let’s break it down step by step so that we can get a better understanding of how it works and how it could be useful for you. As an example, for this article, we will use Noodzy to do one of the most common things on the Internet: post a message on your Facebook web site. To do this there are a few steps that you do regularly but you probably don’t think about them individually. First, you must open your web browser. Then you would go to the the Facebook web site. Next you would have to log into your Facebook account and then click on the new message box. Then you would type in your message and press enter. That equals a total of four main steps with possible smaller steps in between, such as various mouse clicks or keystrokes. Noodzy would allow you to do this in one simple step.
Let’s look at how this works. Instead of going through all these different steps you would simply open your web browser, which would have Noodzy as its home page, and typed in the special tag for Facebook followed by your message. That’s it, it is really that simple. Using Noodzy you can eliminate most of those tedious steps. Now, there are certainly other programs that will allow you to post messages on your Facebook account automatically, but that is not all Noodzy does. The concept of Noodzy is that they want to offer you a home page that will allow you to use their tags to do almost anything on the Internet in one simple step. Currently Noodzy is in Beta so there is a slight lead limited number of things you can do what their tags, compared to the almost infinite number of things that they want you to be able to do with their tags. Nevertheless, Noodzy has great potential and does already offer many ways to save yourself time, trouble, clicks and keystrokes. This is a boon to anyone who wants to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome, not to mention the fact that it saves time.
The Pros: Right now the list of things you can do on the Noodzy page includes common things like posting messages to Facebook, searching for a particular address on Google maps, sending out tweets to your Twitter account and quite a few other functions. The Noodzy home page requires you to register simply with an e-mail address and password but you’ll also need to link your other accounts to it, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail. Once you have done this you can then the access of those accounts without having to leave the Noodzy home page. That means that you can do many different things right from the Noodzy bar which will save you time as well as actions. The concept itself is actually pretty brilliant, and the implementation is not really that bad but there is room for improvement. This is to be expected, however, in any Beta site or program. It is worth noting, as well, that the “Labs” (which is what they call their Help page) is pretty comprehensive in describing not only the process of using Noodzy step by step, but also in listing current tags as well as ones they plan on adding in the future. That’s pretty rare in a beta site, not to mention one that is completely free, so I give them full marks for effort and success in that area.
The Cons: Aside from the slightly limited number of tag functions you can use on Noodzy at the moment, the only real downside I found was a rather glaring yet common lack of attention to small but important details. I’m not talking about neat background pictures for the site or cute animated menus. The whole site is riddled with horrible spelling and grammar errors, looking as if it was written by a fourteen year old that got a C in English class and was just happy they got a ‘passing’ grade. I hope this will be fixed when the Beta is finished, because it is hard for me to take a site seriously when they cannot be bothered to know or notice the difference in usage between “on”, “in” or “of”, not to mention the gross mis-spelling of words like “perosonal” and “promess”. From what I was able to gather, I think the site may have been written by someone who speaks French and then was translated with some kind of software, without ever being touched by someone who actually speaks and writes English proficiently. Now, this may be just my personal pet peeve since I am a writer by profession and by passion, but I know that I can’t be the only person in the universe who still puts value in spelling and grammar. In any case, it really is a small thing and doesn’t actually detract from the usefulness of Noodzy as a site and tool. Maybe I should send them an email, asking if they want me to fix their site’s text.
The verdict: Noodzy is a web site that I feel has great potential to make our Internet lives easier, faster, and even more fun in some cases. Once they have added more tags and fixed the other little problems I noticed, I think Noodzy will be a great website that will become quite popular. The developers make a point of telling us that the more people that use Noodzy the better it will become, so head over to the site and try out for yourself. Who knows? It could become your new home page and possibly the most useful and valuable one in your list of bookmarks. Until next time, my friends.
[Thanks go to reader Panzer for the tip about this service].
Try out Noodzy Beta here. Check out the Noodzy help Labs here.
