Pearltrees: More Than Just “A Nice Idea”?

“Interest Cultivation” has caught our attention, but does Pearltrees have any practical value?

Pearltrees picks up where your “regular” or “favourite” Internet task bar leaves off. All your key sites are stored on the App as “Pearls”, from which any additional links can…ahem…branch out. It all seems like such a good idea on paper, but does our enthusiasm for Pearltrees extend beyond a cursory nod? We’ve taken a look from three perspectives, so the numbers can speak for themselves…


1) The Logical Perspective
Who wouldn’t want all their interests in one place? Who would turn down the chance to stumble upon new people, websites and information? We doubt many would. Pearltrees takes a logical approach to web searching – helping identify the links and resources that logically link together. The internet isn’t necessarily logical, though. If it were, we’d have no LOLcats. So the question remains – if the illogical world of the Internet – in particular social media - helps generate serendipity, can a logical tool re-create this effect? And what effects could this faux-happenstance have upon the Internet’s viral nature?

2) The Wider Cultural Perspective
Putting all our online content in one place goes against the grain when you consider how most of us use the internet. It’s a very postmodern phenomenon – our personalities have become fragmented and we now hold a variety of guises – one each for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, even BBC Sport. The Internet has allowed us free reign to be whoever we want to be, and also have as many different versions of “me” as we like. So isn’t bringing them all together a little…risky? What if any contradictory branches (say, your professional life and your heavy metal band) converge on a point, link, community or person – do any of us need that fear to become more real?

3) The Professional perspective
As a corporate blog, it’s only fair we take a look at Pearltrees from behind our business-tinted glasses. Industries are increasingly moving their communications activities and resources online – as we’d expect them to – so it follows that staff should be able to take their work online, too. Creation, inspiration and even new contacts and clients could emerge through the Pearltrees network, purely because they link with the staff member’s existing online presence. It could potentially widen the parameters of our professional networks, thus bringing business contacts to a more personal (and potentially more approachable) level, which is no bad thing.

The Final Score: Give It A Go,  1 – 2 

It’s not all bad news, though. Despite the above flaws, it can’t be denied that, like many things, Pearltrees users will get out of it what they put in. While it may not help Joe Bloggs on the high street, the creative and corporate potential in the App is very real, and worth further investigation…


Posted by Idealogy