Highrise

www.highrisehq.com

"Highrise is a shared contact manager that helps you keep track of who you talked to, what was said, and what to do next." This is how the people of 37 signals discribe this web app. The website explains the usefulness for journalists, which peaked my interest as a journalism student. Looking at it, I realized how it would help me as a student, too. I could keep my teachers contact info and assignments in one place--online.

I've only used it for the last hour or so, which let me sign up and enter my school projects. So far, I'm pretty impressed. Each teacher has his or her own tab. Each one with my notes and different tasks and when they are due.

But this seems to be only the very peak of what can be done. Ultimately, the point of Highrise is to keep track of conversations had online, in person, or on the phone. And to keep track of what needs to be done or has happend. Lets say . . . you are a journalist, writing an article on the recent up-rise on little kids acting like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the likes of which has not been seen sence the late 80's. You would talk to some kids on the street, their parents, the creator of the TMNT, some physiologist, perhaps somebody involved in the original cartoon. How could you keep track of all this crap? Well, supposedly Highrise is to help with this. I haven't been able to work with this part at all yet so I would have to talk about that later.

So far it seems like a workable, useful tool. More on it later.