I was recently asked what my ideal research tool would be. Here are some of the high level ideas I jotted down.

• My ideal research tool would be platform independent. It could very easily switch from my Mac laptop to the Windows PC at the library to my mobile phone, camera or pen scanner.
• It would allow me to very easily highlight or scan the UID (isbn, issn, QR code, bar code - whatever) of the object or class of objects that are the source material. ie, I've got a book that I'm taking notes from, and rather than copying down all of the pertinent citation information, I can scan the bar code and have it added to my personal datastore for me.
• I would be able to clip text (again, highlight or scan) and scrape like data automatically. Adding the resource type would be as simple as selecting a button. eg, I'm researching a person, I highlight their name, and click an icon depicting a headshot, thereby adding the text string to my datastore with the type "person." Over time the system would learn and suggest the right types.
• I could do the same thing with images. Images though could also be tagged quite granularly - I could draw a shape around an object of interest in the image, and tag that.
• All of the system (creator, publisher, software, hardware) metadata would be transferred to my datastore along with the research I choose to add.
• Built in NLP and analytics would give me a leg up on entity extraction, coding and clustering - but only at a high degree of confidence. I'd rather the system ask for my input than guess and mis-categorize something. So that workflow needs to be quick and painless.
• Internet based resources would be scoured for me based on my trust scores of said resources (or my trust in people who trust those resources.)
• Related data from the internet would be returned and organized with a "follow up" indicator. This data would be organized along facets such as electronic resource, physical resource (ie - I'd have to go to it or have it sent to me), fee or free, and all usual descriptive, system and administrative metadata provided.
• Experts in the field would be identified, along with the "proof" of their expertise. My connections to these experts would be delineated to assist with making contact. Their identification should include contact information, web presence, bibliographies and the like.
• It would include image detection - akin to TinEye and/or SnapTell.
• Audio and video should be allowed in the system. Again with the same capture, tag, type, and detection capabilities (Shazam).
• Collaboration capabilities are required. I should be able to set granular permissions at the object level, and easily integrate with any contact network - address book, social network, closed network.
• I should be able to make notes in the system on the data I'm capturing. I should be able to make generic notes, or make notes on a specific set of captured data - a text string, or portion of an image.
• I should be able to make links between objects of any kind, and type those links, and flag them for follow up.
• The datastore should be backed up regularly and automatically.
• I should be able to import tags/schema/ontologies of any kind as well as create my own.
• I should be able to publish any set or subset of my research as linked data with appropriate styling for the human user.

In case you were wondering, I do love Zotero and Zotz, and hope development on those continue. :)