About Us
Traveling Geeks is a consortium of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, authors, journalists, bloggers, technology innovators and influencers who travel to countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public to educate, share, evaluate, and promote new, innovative technologies. The initiative was founded by Renee Blodgett and Jeff Saperstein in 2008.
Trips are funded by sponsorships from corporations, organizations and governments. The first tour was sponsored by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a trip that successfully marked the proof of concept that could expand to other countries around the world.
Read MoreVisual social bookmarking: Innovative, but will it fly?
Fresh off the plane, I’m on the road with the Travelling Geeks, and the first startup on our schedule is an innovative Paris-based social bookmarking operation, Pearl Trees. Their founder and CEO, Patrice Lamothe, says the site offers users a new way to “curate” or organise their lives on the web.
They’ve secured about US$3,5m in funding for what is essentially a type of visual social bookmarking site, offering a relatively unique drag-and-drop interface. The site, which has been in development for about 7-months, relies heavily on Flash. As far as I can see, it’s essentially a del.icio.us, but with a visual twist, offering a tree-like structure in which to categorise and store your bookmarks. It also offers a nifty, generously-sized real-time preview of the sites you have bookmarked.
The UI may appeal to some, but not to others. I’m in the camp of wanting simple UI and getting my bookmarks quickly (and del.icio.us and Google bookmarks does this very well for me). For me, social bookmarking sites are essentially utility sites, so its interesting that the creators of Pearl Trees went for this highly visual, more complex approach. In my opinion, simple interfaces and simple HTML sites may work better for utility sites such as these.
Pearl Trees is still in Alpha (0.4.1) and by Lamothe’s own admission it’s still early days. What they have achieved is impressive, considering its only been in development for 7 months.
I find it interesting that the site offers no way for a user to search through his or her bookmarks. Lamothe reckons users won’t need search as a result of the unique way they are categorising and storing information, although he later concedes its something they may look at. Search feels like a big omission: When my little Tree of Pearls gets busy, I’m going to need a way to access my bookmarks quickly via a search without excessive clicking. Also the heavy use of Flash seems like a barrier to entry to accessing the info quickly.
Pearl Trees also takes us back to a “real-world” hierarchical approach of organising information, which we know tends not to work on the web where information is endless, and you can’t predict what that information will be. So there are questions over how scalable their model is. In the future, as my Pearl Tree grows large — I may find myself constantly revisiting the hierarchy, trying to manage it, change it and remould it as new information pours in. (I don’t have the time to do this.)
Apart from Pearl Tree’s visual edge, which actually may be a inhibitor, I struggle to find how it differentiates itself from other social bookmarking sites? I guess it may boil down to what type of person you are: Someone who just wants the information or a visual person that enjoys bold UIs that may mirror a desktop experience of storing and filing data.
The genius of Pearl Trees may actually lie in the fact that it appeal to a broader type of user, and not the early adopter crowd. In many ways social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us haven’t really ventured very far outside the tech-savvy, early adopter markets. However lyrical I wax about them, my mother is unlikely to ever use these sites. However she may use something like Pearl Trees, because the UI will make sense to her: It looks and works like her desktop.
Pearl Trees is a good start, and I generally like their approach. I think they are on to something if their plan is to target a broader type of internet user, and I predict Pearl Trees will evolve quite radically (maybe into something else) as the founders continue to build, interrogate and innovate around their creation.
tags: Paris startups, pearl trees, social bookmarking
Potentially related posts
Pearltrees Beta Launches on Wednesday: Will Let You Archive the Links You Share on Twitter
At this year’s LeWeb conference, Pearltrees will launch the beta version of its bookmarking and curation service. In this beta, Pearltrees will introduce some interesting features for Twitter users. Starting Wednesday, Pearltrees users will be able to connect their Twitter accounts to the service. Pearltrees will continuously scan your Twitter account and index every link you share on Twitter. Currently, shared links on Twitter are often quickly forgotten, but thanks to the new Pearltrees connection, you will be able to easily create an archive of all the links you have shared with your friends.
Sponsor
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Pearltrees: A Unique Way to Discover & Organize on the Web
Pearltrees CEO Patrice Lamothe meets us at the door of their offices on rue de charonne in a funky, artsy area of Paris that houses other early stage companies and ad agencies, not unlike San Francisco’s SOMA in many ways.
Coffee waiting? You betcha and hot chocolate too.
He’s not an unknown personality in Silicon Valley so some of us had heard of, tried, tested and demoed Pearltrees before. He knows this so he gets a little creative and we dig a little deeper into their service.
“Building an organization on the web touches on how you organize your stuff in the real world. If you like books, you will likely get a lot of pleasure organizing books into your own library on the web,” says Patrice.
Pause….a nearby church bell rings on the half hour. (Okay, so not quite like SOMA)……
Pearltrees allows you to get in touch with others who share mutual interests around the way you ‘organize yourself on the web.’ “Bookmarking and tagging alone doesn’t allow you to accomplish this,” says Patrice.
Visually it looks a bit like the brain……not unlike a mind map, but that’s not the point of the app, which is all done in flex btw. You can import files from delicious and export as RDF.
Coming out this week, any URL that you tweet will automatically turn into a pearl inside Pearltrees. Pearltrees in a sense becomes your ‘memory,’ allowing you to store useful data by category or by interest — all organized in your Pearl-Tree. (visually displayed the way you think and want to store and view data).
Who uses it? In France, a lot of art and political bloggers use it as a way to visually tell a story or drive people to the web around a particular topic or interest.
One third of their users are early adopter users who are social media savvy and one third are under thirty and mostly women from France and the U.S.
You can embed your pearls on Twitter, email Facebook or directly inside your own blog.
To-date, they have raised roughly $3 million. As for their revenue model? “Either through premium services or advertising,” says Patrice. Their cost per user is very very low however.
Parisian accordionist sings “Just a Gigolo”
Here’s another video from the karaoke accordionist I saw in Paris on my free day before the beginning of the Traveling Geeks French tech junket. While the accordionist handed the mike to others to sing while he accompanied, he took over to sing “Just a Gigolo” (history of song) all in English.
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Karaoke accordionist in Paris
The Parisians know how to have a good time. With a free day just before I met up with the other Traveling Geeks, for our junket through some of the latest in Paris tech and Le Web conference, I took a day to wander around Paris. At a weekly Sunday Parisian street fair, I stumbled across a karaoke accordionist. He had a slew of song sheets out for people to pick a tune. Even though it was raining, a small tent was pitched and the locals were dancing along getting into the tunes. Make sure to watch the other video, Parisian accordionist sings “Just a Gigolo.”
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Introducing the Travelling Geeks…
Today is the first of two days when myself and the Travelling Geeks are bouncing round Paris talking to new start-ups. The collection of bloggers reads like a Dirty Dozen of the tech reporting world… and we have a movie trailer-esque introduction to us all.
At some point I’ll complain I’m wearing the wrong tartan. You can follow the fun at www.travellinggeeks.com.
Zorap Creates Traveling Geeks Virtual Geek Pad for France Blogging Tour
Zorap, which creates digital-rich media collaboration and group video communication experience experiences on the web, has created a Virtual Geek Pad for the Traveling Geeks team in France this week for LeWeb.
It is the only technology that lets you view and listen to music, video and photos with groups of up to 50 people anywhere in the world, using real-time audio and video communications.
While other real-time web communications tools like Twitter and Facebook provide value for active web users interested in quick soundbites, Zorap is the only service available that allows engagement using all forms of media in real-time, not just text, links and photos.
Check out the Virtual Geek Pad they designed for the Traveling Geeks.
Zorap allows individuals and groups of individuals to travel to movie sites and watch trailers together, listen to new music with their friends, sports events with their buddies, see wedding photos where everyone is viewing and sharing in real-time, shop for travel destinations with classmates or family, participate in a lively auction where you can see other bidders in real-time and more.
The Traveling Geeks land at Le Web
Go to dinner with the geeks and you’ll get lots of photos taken
Let me set the scene for you. More than a dozen geeks have traveled to Paris for a weeklong tech odyssey culminating with coverage from France’s premier Web 2.0 conference, Le Web. I’m having a hard time trying to determine what the difference is between “Le Web” and “The Web,” but as far as I can tell, it’s soft cheese. (Continue reading this entry…)
Traveling Geeks Kick Things into Gear in the Marais
A few visuals to get you in the ‘traveling geeks’ frame of mind. The Traveling Geeks are getting ready to roll………and move, non-stop for the next four days.
We had a ‘geek’ session to ensure we’ll stay connected and can create content, anytime, anywhere. Thanks Orange, Skype and MAXroam. Below, Amanda, Olivier, Sky and Robin get the scoop.
Amanda, Beth and Eliane — on the move. Off to explore the city and well, yeah eat. Night one.
Olivier Ezratty shows up with the Canon 85 mm 1.2 portrait lense. Ahhhhh, what a magnificent lense.
Beth Blecherman and Eliane Fiolet en route to the kickoff dinner in the Marais.
David Spark and Tom Foremski (yeah, well, we’re still in the Metro)
Ah yes, ambience. Get used to it, she says with a smile. You’re not in Kansas anymore. Silicon Valley either. Renee Blodgett, Jean-Xtophe and Eliane Fiolet in ambience-rich Les Bougresses.
MobileGlobe’s founder Yoann Valensi was our host so typical “traveling geek” style, we looked at toys and saw demos over dinner. Thanks Yoann, look forward to trying out your service. Rodrigo, what was your question again?
Thank god for SMS and some of the phones that did work (we’ve had issues with ’em – unlocked devices can have its complications)….Ewan Spence from Edinburgh made it with luggage in time to join us. A joyous Frederic Lardinois to his right.
And as for the food, what can I say? It’s Paris after all. We didn’t starve nor did we complain. Great job Les Bougresses (located in the Marais…..most definitely worth a try).
Traveling Geeks in Paris Kick Off
The Traveling Geeks (who’s in?) arrived in Paris today and gathered in a cozy small restaurant in Le Marais to get their first demo from Mobile Globe, a low cost international mobile calls provider. (Continue reading this entry…)
