Larry Hawes reminded me yesterday of a web content summary tool I reviewed a while back. Unfortunately, it turns out that the product no longer exists. So, I got to looking for other options that were out there and came across a few that I tested using Zena Applebaum’s Competitive Intelligence and Know Your Client post from yesterday. I reviewed five products, but there are many more out there for you to find (or comment about here, if you know of some good summarizing tools.)

Here are the products and the results:

Summly

Summly only works on iOS platform (iPhone and iPads). You can go directly from the App itself, but I found the plug-in for the iOS Safari browser to be a better way of getting a summary of the web content on the smaller screen of my iPhone. Here is the results for Zena’s article:

Know Your Client in 2012 – Why You Need CI, Now!

– So in 2012, answer the cry for CI and KYC!
– If clients want smart in-the-know lawyers, then I cannot think of a better way for lawyers to nurture their client relationships, differentiate themselves in a crowded competitive landscape, and maintain their roles as trusted business advisors, than through engaging in and supporting a robust CI program.
– Legal services have evolved to a point where it is assumed that if you are a qualified lawyer, you and your firm can provide any necessary legal work.

Here’s what it looks like in the app:

GistWeb

GistWeb is an online resource that allows you to click on a bookmark and it will take the webpage you are currently viewing and create a summary of the content.

3 Geeks and a Law Blog: Know Your Client in 2012 — Why You Need CI, Now!

63% Reduction Achieved (245 words)

In the last several years, Know Your Customer or Know Your Client (KYC) legislation has come to the forefront. Professional service firms everywhere write about KYC rules, and law firms themselves are creating new processes and procedures for dealing with the KYC rules.

From the first day of starting to work in the legal industry, whether as an articling student, a legal assistant, a law librarian or a marketer, you are taught that in this business (and it is a business as much as it is a service) it is all about client relationships and the service provided to those clients. Legal services have evolved to a point where it is assumed that if you are a qualified lawyer, you and your firm can provide any necessary legal work.
If clients want smart in-the-know lawyers, then I cannot think of a better way for lawyers to nurture their client relationships, differentiate themselves in a crowded competitive landscape, and maintain their roles as trusted business advisors, than through engaging in and supporting a robust CI program. Contrary to popular belief, CI is not about competitors or who did what deals, CI is about the competitive landscape for both firms and clients.
So in 2012, answer the cry for CI and KYC!
No better solution than meeting your clients personally to make sure that the detail you want to know is correct.

GreatSummary


GreatSummary is a website that allows you to plug in large amounts of text into a textbox or you can put the URL of a website and it will summarize the content found on the website. I found that copying and pasting the content of Zena’s article worked better, as it didn’t pick up all the extra content found on our blog that was unrelated to the article:

GREATSUMMARY

Highlights

Top 10 highlights automatically generated by GreatSummary

Source: User Text
  • Knowing your client, their market, their industry, their issues and their pending challenges from both a legal and business perspective is CI. Knowing your client is about knowing who are the C-suite and in-house counsel team. (0)
  • Professional service firms everywhere write about KYC rules, and law firms themselves are creating new processes and procedures for dealing with the KYC rules. (0)
  • From the first day of starting to work in the legal industry, whether as an articling student, a legal assistant, a law librarian or a marketer, you are taught that in this business (and it is a business as much as it is a service) it is all about client relationships and the service provided to those clients. (0)
  • Every time I see an email circulate in our firm about KYC training for associates or new KYC procedures, it makes me think — there is more knowing your client than finances and ethics. (0)
  • More importantly, the difference between research and CI, is that CI will help keep the answers consistently and routinely up-to-date, so when a client calls, the service provided is second to none. (0)
  • Clients should not be left waiting in the reception area; boardrooms should be comfortable and help clients feel at ease; legal opinions should be expertly drafted without any errors; client entertainment should be of the highest caliber. (0)
  • Knowing the client includes knowing where your firm’s relationships with the client exist, if at all. (0)
  • Legal services have evolved to a point where it is assumed that if you are a qualified lawyer, you and your firm can provide any necessary legal work. (0)
  • Contrary to popular belief, CI is not about competitors or who did what deals, CI is about the competitive landscape for both firms and clients. (0)
  • If clients want smart in-the-know lawyers, then I cannot think of a better way for lawyers to nurture their client relationships, differentiate themselves in a crowded competitive landscape, and maintain their roles as trusted business advisors, than through engaging in and supporting a robust CI program. (0)

Free Summarizer

Like the GreatSummary site above, Free Summarizer also allows you to paste in large amounts of text into their webpage and create a summary. You can pick the number of summarized sentences for it to return, and it will display the results on the results page, plus you can have the results emailed to your as well.

Here is the summary:

Knowing your client, their market, their industry, their issues and their pending challenges from both a legal and business perspective is CI.

From the first day of starting to work in the legal industry, whether as an articling student, a legal assistant, a law librarian or a marketer, you are taught that in this business (and it is a business as much as it is a service) it is all about client relationships and the service provided to those clients.

Clients should not be left waiting in the reception area; boardrooms should be comfortable and help clients feel at ease; legal opinions should be expertly drafted without any errors; client entertainment should be of the highest caliber.

Knowing the client includes knowing where your firm’s relationships with the client exist, if at all.

If clients want smart in-the-know lawyers, then I cannot think of a better way for lawyers to nurture their client relationships, differentiate themselves in a crowded competitive landscape, and maintain their roles as trusted business advisors, than through engaging in and supporting a robust CI program.

TopicMarks

I’ve used TopicMarks in the past and have been very impressed with the integration it can have with Google Docs, Google Reader, and other resources. Unfortunately, it was not working at the time I wanted to test it, but I did want to include it in this list so that you can go to it in the future (hopefully this is just a “Saturday Morning Maintenance” issue. TopicMarks is a cloud-based service that will store your information and add to it automatically through your feeds or Evernote.