I have wanted to write about Australian based Particls for some time now. So why havent I? I wanted to give the post a bit more time than I normally would and naturally I haven’t had much time.
In this world that we live in today we have access to more information than ever, but the amount of time we have to pay attention to this information is much the same. The amount of new information being generated constantly is vast, so vast that it is hard to comprehend. Each of us individually will be interested in only a very small subset of this information.
So how do we find the islands of information that we want in that vast ocean of data that exists out there. If we were to travel around by ourselves we could seek it out and more than likely we would find some of what we were interested in. But with all that information out there that we could be paying attention to, why should we have to be spend time searching around for it. Surely if we were to explain everything that we were interested in, things we liked, places we worked, where we lived and who are friends were, if we were to explain all that information and more then something else could do all the hard work for us and bring that information to us. When it delivered that information to us, we could tell it if we were interested in it or not and over time it would learn what we liked and what weren’t interested in.
Particls attempts to deliver us data of personal relevance when and how we want it. Particls attention engine delivers the latest information through included ‘adapters’ such as tickers and pop-ups. As we go about our daily activities Particls constantly alerts us about incoming information of potential interest and we are given the opportunity to provide feedback on its relevance to us.
As a software developer I spend most of my time each day on the computer and I made a decision to run the ticker for a few days while I worked. While I appreciate this might be of use to some people, I found the ticker too much of an interruption and ended up turning it off, although I still find the popups for important info to be useful. One thing I do like to keep up to date with is the latest in the tech industry and currently I find Techmeme to be the best way to get breaking news of interest. Maybe its my familiarity with the newspaper style, but Techmeme’s format just works for me. If I could get a Techmeme style website based on things that are personally relevant to me now that would be cool.
In summary I think this is an extraordinary area for innovation and while Particls core engine looks great I can’t help but think the way information is delivered to the user could be better. Particls allows developers to create their own ways of displaying data and if I wasn’t so busy (read: lazy) I would have a shot at it, but I look forward to seeing what others can do and where Particls goes with this.
