Harold,

I like your reference to mash ups as a way to lubricate the stock and flow of online information assimilation. Truly a mashup tries to unify knowledge for presentation and allow some kind of interaction. But the problem with most of today's technologies is that the mashup is either server-based (user not in control) or the interactive takes the user away form the focal point of content.

This is why (shameless plug coming) we created the web's first memo communications system, called memothis. MemoThis lets place a virtual sticky note onto any area of any web or portal page and use it to manage private research, collegiate collaboration or distributed blogging. It works like a natural part of your browser. Throw away your bookmarking tools, clipping services and sidebar wikis...just use memos.

Our goal was to design a simple, elegant solution will resolve the very issues you mention so anyone can vocalize their thoughts and embed them within the context of the page. Search is great until you get to the pages the target pages. We allow the everyday user to integrate their thoughts with the published content they find so ideas are never lost, and they can be vastly more productive online. It's a user-controlled mash-up.

Try it out at http://www.memothis.com. I’d love to know what you think.

Kjell (chel) Kahlenberg