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Meet Pearltrees: Bookmarks with a social twist

Meet Pearltrees: Bookmarks with a social twist
A French Web site, called Pearltrees, is developing a Web service that is trying to bring a social networking element to bookmarking - but with the connections based on content instead of people. Think Facebook and Twitter mixed with one Amazon's recommendation system. You don't add friends in Pearltrees. Instead, you add links. As you come across something on the Internet that interests you, something that you might have otherwise bookmarked or tweet, you put it in your personal pearltree - which is really like a "main folder," that contain the links themselves, called "pearls." Here's the trick: if there are others on Pearltree who have also posted that same URL into one of their own pearltrees, you are now connected and can see their other links. The service, which is free, is still in alpha mode and has limited functionality and exposure. For now, it's a bit buggy but the concept is pretty solid.

Understanding Pearltrees: A New Way To Organize Web Content Many people search the web, read content every day and share that content. While advances in search technology has made finding information easier and easier, saving and organizing information in a way that captures a story or conversation can still be very challenging. I just posted on Techmamas.com about my first experience with Pearltrees.com; I was on a Traveling Geeks trip to LeWeb and Pearltrees was one of the French companies we met. I easily created Pearltrees for conversations, issues and topic areas I am researching. Months later, when I took on a project as adviser to Pearltrees, I had the opportunity to learn even more about the site and share the information I learned. The way many people currently organize web content is by using bookmarking sites, which are organized in a linear, menu-style format. A Pearltree is made up of Pearls. Listed above is a picture of my Firefox toolbar with the Pearltree buttons installed. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 8.1 Intro screencast: The Pearl: 9.

Pearltrees Visualizes How You Organize the Web This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Pearltrees Quick Pitch: Pearltrees is a new visual way to organize content on the Web and connecting people's interests. Genius Idea: How do you organize the web on the browser? Signing up for Pearltrees is simple, but getting used to the interface and all of its features is not as easy. Now for the organization part: you can create complex systems of pearls, known as pearltrees. Clicking on a pearl gives you a range of options that go beyond visiting your favorite website. Pearltrees takes a time investment to make it useful. Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs.

The Curation Buzz... And PearlTrees Posted by Tom Foremski - April 12, 2010 My buddy Dave Galbraith is the first person I remember to first start talking about curation and the Internet, several years ago. He even named his company Curations, and created a tool/site for curation: Wists. And his site SmashingTelly - is great example of curation, a hand-picked collection of great videos. Today, much is written about curation and the Internet but it all seems mostly talk because we don't really have the tools we need. Robert Scoble writes about The Seven Needs of Real-Time Curators "... who does curation? Reading Robert Scoble's post on curation, it almost seemed as if he were describing PearlTrees, a company I've recently been working with in an advisory role, when he talks about "info atoms and molecules." ...what are info atoms? PearlTrees is very similar, it's a curation tool that uses "pearls" as a visual metaphor for a web site, a Twitter post, an image, or a video. More to come... Tweet this story Follow @tomforemski

Pearltrees launches Twitter sync and reveals its social system [France] Paris-based Pearltrees has been catching interest around the web the last few days not least because a gaggle influential Silicon Valley bloggers have descended on Paris for Le Web, but mainly because of its interesting model for visually mapping how people collect and share information on the Web. But today the startup opens the kimono on its full system. They will announce two new things today: Twitter synchronization (enabling a user to create a pearl automatically from Twitter and to tweet automatically from their new Pearltrees), Pearltrees search, Real time discussion and connection. The other new aspect announced today on stage at Le Web is the Pearltrees Social System. But to explain first, here’s a new video they just released: Pearltrees is effectively visual social bookmarking and therefore has the potential to be more widely used than perhaps the traditional alternatives. You can track what you have looked at and watch what your friends are tracking.

Screenshot tour: Pearltrees tries to be graphical Delicious of the future; fails Pearltrees is a fledgling social bookmarking service, which tries to break away from the tagging paradigm. Instead, each bookmark is a "pearl", and the pearls are linked into trees. You can see all of your bookmarks on a large Flash-based canvas, and drag them around. The site is tightly integrated with a Firefox add-on for creating "pearls". The idea sounded intriguing, so I decided to take the site + add-on combo for a spin. Since the site itself is so visual, I documented the tour in a series of screenshots which you can see after the jump. So here's the overview screenshot again, this time with a bit of an explanation: You can see the edge of the default "pearl tree" you get when you sign up, along with a thumbnail of a destination page (YouTube, in this case). The add-on creates three buttons next to your address bar. The add-on exposes its settings via a weird "Options" menu. This is another screenshot of the UI, because I just couldn't resist the spelling.

Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You Read | PsyBlog - Ice You shouldn’t believe everything you read, yet according to a classic psychology study at first we can’t help it. What is the mind’s default position: are we naturally critical or naturally gullible? As a species do we have a tendency to behave like Agent Mulder from the X-Files who always wanted to believe in mythical monsters and alien abductions? Or are we like his partner Agent Scully who was the critical scientist, generating alternative explanations, trying to understand and evaluate the strange occurrences they encountered rationally? Do we believe what the TV, the newspapers, blogs even, tell us at first blush or are we naturally critical? Can we ignore the claims of adverts, do we lap up what politicians tell us, do we believe our lover’s promises? It’s not just that some people do and some people don’t; in fact all our minds are built with the same first instinct, the same first reaction to new information. Descartes versus Spinoza So who was right, Spinoza or Descartes?

Pearltrees, the Social Curation Tool | Virtual Simplicity If there is one thing I like about koozies, that is their ability to become a unique and personalized gift. Regardless of where you will be handing them out, a koozie can be ideal memento for any occasion, whether it be for a get-together, corporate party, fundraiser, or a sports celebration. A koozie is a highly functional and innovative product recognized for its many uses. Koozies at www.getkoozies.com can embellished with a design of your own choosing. You will be given the opportunity to select the design that you want to be printed on the koozies. So, for instance, if you will be using them for a fundraising event, you can have a personalized message imprinted on them. Personalized koozies are excellent souvenirs that can be handed out to guests to honor and perpetuate any occasion (i.e. reunion, weddings, birthdays, or other special events). Handing out custom imprinted items will surely be appreciated by your guests since they have a more personal feel to them. Read More

45 minute - The Crash Course in 45 Minutes (or less) - Oct. 29, Blog by Chris Martenson Thursday, October 29, 2009, 10:05 AM To commemorate our one-year anniversary, I'm pleased to announce that I am posting a free, condensed, 45-minute version of the Crash Course for your viewing enjoyment. The presentation it contains is part of a public talk delivered in Boulder, Colorado, this past summer filmed by Dave Gardner (who is working on a documentary called GrowthBusters, check it out - he deserves and would appreciate support for his project). If it has been a while since you watched the Crash Course, please take the time to experience this new format. You can watch all six parts here on this page. We hope that this condensed version of the Crash Course will be able to traverse the web, the airwaves, and the networks of your friends and families more speedily and effectively than the original version.

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Pearltrees: A Design Interface for Remapping the Web It's rare to look at a bookmarking tool and feel convinced that it's going to win a design award. Pearltrees is such a product. The French site offers us a new way to explore and contextualize the web. Said Lamothe, "We wanted a type of game play that was playful to use and map the web...and the fact that you can group and ungroup content easily means that you can re-catalogue it and keep it current." Rather than looking at the web as a series of linear pages, this service lets us build tree graphs of connecting arguments, share them and then break them at any time. Naturally, as a newly anointed God of information, other great thinkers will gravitate towards you. The Future of Touch Interfaces Given the unique user interface of Pearltrees, Lamothe expects that the company will roll out feature releases and enhancements on an ongoing basis. At this point, I almost fell out of my chair thinking about the possibilities.

Stop Software Patents Petition Love your idiots So, I've been thinking recently about milestones in open source projects. Not code based milestones, but ... milestones in terms of a project's use and community. Usually ones that happen to you rather than ones you can create. The one that I want to talk about today though is a bittersweet moment but one that needs to be handled correctly if you want your project to thrive: The arrival of the idiots. You should know that moment by now. So ... ok, maybe the guy is an idiot. The point is: you need to find a way to communicate with this person. For your project to be accessible to somebody with a different mental model, you need to attract and retain a documentation contributor with that mental model so they can write the docs that make sense to them. Or, the shorter but less polite version: An idiot is the only person who can tell you what your docs need to make them comprehensible to other idiots. So ... keep reframing the conversation. "This is going to take some explaining. -- mst, out

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