When Google replaced Yahoo, it was because everyone believed in directory (monetized with ads) while the next big thing was actually search (but we didn’t know how to monetize it yet). Today search is a big deal with big player fighting over like Google Bing Naver Baidu… but the next big thing is web curation !

Curation: The act of curating, of organizing and maintaining a collection of artworks or artifacts; The act of curing or healing; The manual updating of information in a database. (Wikipedia)

Internet has accomplished its mission to democratize information. With have access to information, all information, too much information. With the web 2.0 everyone can share its knowledge, but in all this mess how to find what is relevant to me!

The future of web 2.0 is to make websites more user-centered, customized to each of its users. Is it naive in 2010 to assume that one unique homepage interface is what feat best your million of daily users? I believe everyone want to be unique (want to customized the background design) and want different information relevant according to :

– his interest (music, art, sport, tech…)

– his level of proficiency (beginner, intermediate, advanced..)

– his cultural background or geographical location

– his generation

– the last time he/she visited the page

– his/her use of the website (consume, contribute, review…)

Some interesting websites already appeared, among them Scoop.it a website where you can curate a webpage about the topic of you choice. I looks like a blog except that you dont even need to write anything anymore, just gather the interesting article you found onthe web -and eventually comments. This is very interesting because someone’s knowledge about something is not only what he has to say about it, but also what are his references! And this tool allow to share your secret source of knowledge. Neat!

The other one more famous already is StumbleUpon, where you fulfill a small list of your topic of interest and then they submit to you a few website they think you would like (probably based on recommendation of their existing user base). For each page you “like it” or not, and this will help them guess your taste better and better. It is the version of “Hot or not” but for websites! Fun!

But of course the subject of my post is Pealtrees, the French startup -2 years old – that already rasied 3.8 million euros (ab. 5 million USD). I discovered Pearltrees back in 2008 a few month after the launch of their beta version. Didn’t really get how to use it but I was really fascinated and could feel it was full of promises.

I used it from time to time, when I thinked about it but not very regularly. Then I came in Paris and have been lucky enough to meet with one of the founder François Rocaboy at Pearltrees office in Paris 11th and he made me totally fall in love again with pearltrees!

Here is what I see promising in Pearltrees:

– You build your own map of the web

• by hand-picking websites you find relevant
• by organizing/linking the websites among them in a way that make sense to you

– You can find people selecting the same webpages than you (matched URL)

– You can collaborate with these people who think have similar taste and curate together websites on a choosen topic. Then you get notify of what have been added since your last visit.

– You can search for people close to you (tastewise) at different level: general level (consider all your pearls/bookmarks), on a specific topic (consider only your pearl in your ‘cooking) or any sub-level (ex:cooking from the South of France). I see a huge potential in that for dating and SNS!