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There's search and then there's post-search.

Search is something you've certainly been doing for years. The Internet is so vast and jumbled that we wouldn't be able to find our favorite magazines online without search engines. But "post-search," if you're new to the term, is what you do with the facts, figures, stories, and other tidbits that you've gathered while running a search.

For post-search, you need an intuitive and flexible way to collect your information, and that's where Net Snippets comes in. With Net Snippets, you can collect all your HTML search results, as well as e-mail correspondences and PDF documents, into folders, then share or revise that information.

Only a few years ago, post-search tools were sold mainly to academics and professional researchers, people who needed a heavy-duty way to collect their findings. But Internet time moves quickly, and as people become more comfortable with searching for information online, the need for post-search tools grows exponentially.

Think of all the people who do some sort of research in your organization, whether it's looking up sales information, customer data, or notes on the competition. Sure, they can gather that information in a Word document, but having Net Snippets makes the process much quicker.

Net Snippets is a small (1.5 MB) download, and when installed it adds a toolbar to your browser. It works with several Windows browsers, including Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, and more. When you run a search, call up Net Snippets and make a new folder to save your data. Folders display on the left-hand side of the browser window. You can then use Net Snippet's flexible tools to save the data any way you like. You can copy the text you want to save or grab whole Web pages. You can choose to save all the links on a page at once or all the images. You can even save PDF documents in your search folder or do a screen grab of all or part of a Web page.

Net Snippets doesn't save into proprietary formats, so Web data that you've saved stays in HTML format. When you're done collecting information, you can rearrange what you've gathered and save it as a new document so it's all in one place. You can also e-mail your report to someone else with just a click.

You don't need to use Net Snippets with a browser, though. It also comes with a desktop application. Open it and drag information in from any application, including your e-mail client.

Net Snippets comes in three versions, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. Standard is a lighter version missing some of the advanced functions, such as the ability to create reports of all your findings. It sells for $79.95 and should be fine for independent researchers. The Professional edition sells for $129.95 and has all the features mentioned.

The Enterprise edition offers the same tools as the Professional edition, but includes a sharing and collaboration tool that lets you share folders with other people in your organization. That means you can jointly research a topic and see each other people's results. The Enterprise edition starts at $2,500 for 10 licenses.

Net Snippets works with most browsers, letting you save information to folders you create.