Note Taking Apps from East Asia
Even though East Asia has a reputation of cramming too much text into its websites and contents, I find that some of my favourite note taking services come from this region.
The absolute favourite is HackMD, which is built by a Taiwanese team (of students!). It’s not easy to find the info if you don’t go to Github, but clicking on the last person to edit the app’s tutorial will get you to one of the co-founders, Yukai, which leads you to another, Max. In the early years, when HackPad still existed (HackMD credits them as inspiration), the whole team was a bit more accessible. I remember someone being based in Japan. HackMD is much better than HackPad. For one thing, it’s feature list is insane. It also has the best documentation.
Hatena Blog
Founded: 2001
It now has Hatena Bookmark, Hatena Fotolife, Hatena Keyword.
They also have their Design Staff Blog and Developer Blog
Note.com
Founded: 2011 I am in awe that a Japanese app managed to get top-level one-word domain. More likely, they paid a royal sum for whomever had parked it previously. They also created the creator’s platform: Cakes < kind of like Medium.
A side note: checking up on HackMD again, I discovered the Small Chat App, the best chat solution I’ve ever encountered for someone like me.