The Other School of Economics

A new web paradigm: Pearltrees

A few days ago I found out about an application that threw me off my chair: Pearltrees.com.

The reason is that I have been discussing a similar concept around me for a few months  – without taking any serious step towards implementing it -. So here I was, contemplating the execution of the idea and going through a range of emotions when I discovered in more details the way they designed the application. Not to mention the irony of their being French.

After using it for a few days, I believe Pearltrees could change the way we browse the web. No less. Hats off.

Let me rephrase: whether Pearltrees in its current format survives the harsh rites that smart start-ups have to pass in order to become viable businesses is still unknown; however the concepts underpinning it have a brilliant future and its founders have certainly put their foot in a big door.

The reason for this Nostradamusean prediction is that that they are bringing to life a paradigm at the core of the development of the internet since its beginning 40 years ago: The science of networks.

Whilst Pearltrees certainly has many layers and potentials that will be uncovered as people start to use it, I wanted to focus in this post on its ability to allow users to become the cartographers of the internet by creating a mental image of the way they browse.

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It is quite a tautology to write that the web is a network. Pick any text book on the topic and you are likely to find an illustration looking like one of those two pictures:

The issue to-date is that we have not seen any credible software able to convert the illustrative concept of a map into a practical and intuitive application.

- The first intuitive attempt to “map” the “good stuff found on-line” was the bookmark managed within the browser. This was done on the computer, locally, and ended-up creating static shopping lists organized in folders.

- Then came the social and sharing dimension introduced by sites like del.icio.us. They’ve added a few twists: tags and social networking. However the result is still stored in lists. More lists of websites, lists of categories and lists of tags.

If humans like making lists, they adore a good picture.

Pearltrees goes one step further to bring us closer to the allegorical maps of the internet. We are not focusing on the dots anymore (ie. the tags or key words), but on how those dots are joined (ie. the network they underpin). We are moving up one level of abstraction.

Pearltrees is probably to Delicious what a Windows interface is to the DOS text only command screen.

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The mental image of Networks leads to a more subtle and potentially more powerful point: Pearltrees maps the users’ cognitive patterns.

This is a direct reference to neuro-science and the science of networks very familiar to the pioneers of the Internet.

The sum of all the information, pages, links, search-engine queries that we keep punching through computers and mobile phones becomes our footprint on the web. It is a carbon copy of our trains of thoughts. (By the way a concept that Google has understood all too well)
Here lies the true potential of Pearltrees: the capture and curation of our regular brain waves.

The concept of mind maps is sometimes abused and overused in corporate jargon by consultants wanting to convey a sense of sophistication. The guys at Pearltrees might have actually done it for real.

Networks have a deep underlying order and operate according to simple but powerful rules. Knowledge of the structure and behaviour of these networks illuminates everything from the vulnerability of economies to the ways that diseases are spread. Scientist have long suspected that we live in a small world, where everything is connected to everything else. Indeed, networks are pervasive. From the human brain to the Internet to the economy to our group of friends. These linkages, it turns out, aren’t random. All networks, to the great surprise of scientists, have an underlying order and follow simple laws. Understanding the structure and behaviour of these networks is key in a knowledge economy.

Let’s illustrate the point with the concept of WILFING.

In April 2007 the Guardian reported the results of a survey conducted by YouGov. It appeared that more than two-thirds of the 33.7 million internet users in the UK admitted spending time ‘WILFING’ (What was I Looking For?) while browsing the internet. The calculation seemed to add up to the equivalent of one working day a fortnight lost in an electronic reverie.

Example:

“I am planning my next holidays to Tasmania or Paris >> I need to rent a car >> when are the cheapest flights? >> where are we going to go for dinner when we arrive? >> by the way I need to book a restaurant for the work function next week as well >> [email interruption: NY-Times headlines update] >> Copenhagen latest news >> interesting article on water supply in the middle east >> I need to bookmark it and read later >> which makes me think of this story I heard: how many liters of water to do a single cup of coffee? >> Google it >> the Economist reported that 1,120 litres of water go into producing a single litre of the beverage”

You can breathe now.

We can dismiss the time spent online as a nuisance: either a dramatic productivity waste at work, or an addiction impacting our social and personal life (According to the YouGov survey time-consuming practices appear to have destructive effects: a third of males admitted that WILFING has a damaging effect on their relationship with a partner).

However there could be a positive side to this phenomenon. What if we could turn this mud into gold?

This is precisely the question raised by this post.

Is Pearltrees a significant step into bringing together not only the memory of what has been browsed, but also the thought patterns qualifying and making sense of this content?

Whatever the future of this app might be, it is certainly opening our eyes to a more intelligent way to create, consume, share and curate knowledge.

{ @leLaissezFaire }