Channel.me is a new application that lets multiple people view the same webpage and chat about it. I guess that could be useful for students who are researching topic together, but what really has be excited is the ability to easily annotate websites with virtual sticky notes that can be placed on the site — whether or not you using the group text feature.

The site appears to maintain the sticky notes indefinitely on the unique url address you’re given for the website you input, so this might be the easiest tool around for students to use and save for research notation and, more importantly, to illustrate their use of reading strategies. You just have to copy and paste the url address on a student blog or website. Unfortunately, in order to save those notes and then do the same thing to a new page, you have to go back to the main Channel.me site and input the new address — you wouldn’t be able to do it “within” the first unique url address you started with (though they do plan on adding that feature). But that’s a minor inconvenience compared to its general ease of use.

I talk more about the value of this kind of tool at Best Applications For Annotating Websites, and I’m adding “Channel.me” to that list.