What is it: Mindomo is “a versatile Web-based mind mapping tool, delivering the capabilities of desktop mind mapping software in a Web browser – with no complex software to install or maintain.” Anyone familiar with mindmapping, and MindManager, will recognise the terrain. The company behind it is Romania-based Expert Software Applications.

Executive Summary: If you mind map, another useful option. If you don’t, a good place to start.

My ten minutes:  Mindomo opens in a separate browser window and is, unsurprisingly, a Flash app. The interface is simple, and borrows more than a little from Microsoft Office’s ribbon idea (or maybe it’s a licensee?) This works well although as with Peepel, it tends to reduce space on the screen.

If you’re used to mindmaps, and in particular MindManager, Mindomo will be very straightforward, right down to the keyboard shortcuts for adding subbranches and branches. In fact in some ways it feels smoother than MindManager, although I don’t know why. There is a generous array of features available, from being able to change the shape of branches to adding a rudimentary image here and there to brighten things up.

I did hit some snags. Flash prevented me from selecting everything on the page when I wanted to change fonts or layout, and my effort to register (necessary if you want to save your mindmap) failed. Neither was I able to export to PDF (one of the supported formats): the process seemed to work but the file could not be found. I also found that I wasn’t able to import a MindManager map.

For collaboration, it seems to be possible to save a map as either a public or private one, and, if public, to be able to set whether others can read, copy, modify or delete those maps. As far as I can see it’s not possible to set whether a map is accessible only by certain other users. I’m guessing that is in the works.

Verdict: Great promise as a quick brainstorming app if you don’t have Mindmanager, or Freemind, or just want something quick and dirty. But it needs some work.

Score: 7 out of 10