Pearltrees 2.0 is out!
Today we’re introducing Pearltrees 2.0, a major evolution of Pearltrees that makes it simpler, more beautiful and more accessible than ever. With this new version you’ll be able to organize, explore and share everything you like with even more power and ease.
Let us introduce you to the “Dynamic Grid”, the “Extended Drag-and-Drop”, “full HTML5” and several other surprises we’ve prepared for you in this version!
The “Dynamic Grid” – A stunning new design
This new format lets you organize and display things however you want! It makes your interests easier to read and share, while keeping all the organizational benefits of Pearltrees. It has been designed for organizing, exploring and sharing collections!
“Extended Drag-and-Drop” – Everything organized more naturally
Drag and drop works so well for organization we’ve extended it to things outside of Pearltrees. Grab anything from anywhere – desktop, browser even within a document or web page – to add it to your account.
“My Interests” and “My Network” – A whole new way to explore your interests
We know that you like to explore amazing collections related to your interests, so we have made it even easier for you with two brand new features:
- “My Interests” to explore interesting topics suggested for you at each visit.
You’ll see fresh collections organized by other contributors based on what you have organized in your account. - “My Network” to enjoy others’ contributions in one place. “My Network” merges your notifications and news. Add interesting collections, teams and friends to your account and get their updates here!
The “list of your collections” – More than a global view of your account
Open the “My account” menu to see the list of your collections. Not only does this list give you a global view of your account but it will also let you organize it quickly by moving your collections with a drag and drop.
“Full HTML5” – A Universal Service, Accessible Everywhere
We have rebuilt Pearltrees entirely in HTML5, to make it readable everywhere, open, and more integrated into Web standards. You can enjoy it on most common browsers as well as iPhone, iPad and most current Android devices.
A Universal Experience across Desktop, Mobile and Tablet
Don’t forget to download the Android or iOS apps to organize, explore and share everything you like anywhere, anytime. You’ll enjoy the exact same experience on every device!
I DID liked the pearltrees a lot, but since the new version, I don’t use it anymore. I dislike it now, because the pearls (which is the basic of the pearltrees) are hide and only a deep hard search brought it back. I wonder why they destroy a excellence tool like pearltree, with this new interface
I used pearltrees to find my links and my way on internet, but since the links are almost gone, it’s useless for me. (Sorry guys, i’m back to my good ol linkstartpage)
Hi Richard,
We’re sorry to see that you don’t like this new version.
Pearltrees’ goal has always be to enable everybody to organize and share their interests. The old format was a good start to do so, but we need something easier, more powerful and more accessible. That’s the new format.
Now everybody can easily organiaz all their digital contents ( web pages, files, photos, notes) and share them easily.
We understand that the transition may be hard, but if you have some time please give this new version a try, you’ll certainly see its advantages 🙂
Some people have commented on FB that Pearltrees has “taken the money and run,” but I don’t really think they’re into it just for the money or that they’re being greedy, but they’re probably under some pretty heavy pressure from investors to increase their userbase and that they also want to increase their reach for their “democratization of the web” goals. Somehow they feel this is the best way to do it because, remember, no money, no Pearltrees…I’m not sure that the current paying userbase created enough money for them to feel like they could expand and reach their goals.
Ultimately, they see Pearltrees as a different kind of tool with different uses than all the people who loved what made Pearltrees 1 unique on the web. Like I said, they’re not greedy, but the whole abrupt switcheroo (especially on mobile, where you have no choice at all to revert to version 1!) looks most definitely like a Faustian bargain and a cautionary tale about internal vs. external financing. I for one would have paid more for my Premium subscription to keep the mindmap paradigm fully functional AND have the improvements they’ve made (more dropzone space, HTML 5, better organized sidebar, drag and drop). And I would have paid _considerably_ more for some other improvements that would have made Pearltrees an absolute dragon-slayer: fuller indexing/search of pearl CONTENT, local storage/sync, much better annotation/highlighting tools. I mean, yes, doing the latter is a ton of work and expense and seems to move outside of Pearltrees’ original idea, BUT it is the logical extension of them moving into the cloud storage business. What good is 25gb online storage to me if it offers no organizational advantage over Dropbox et al (no way to organize it beyond folders/grid, no way to index/search useful meta-info for a massive 25gb collection of info–e.g. titles AND content AND annotations/highlights/comments) and has disadvantages (no local storage/sync and thus necessity of being online)? And they wouldn’t have to develop all this stuff on their own, they could have just partnered with a couple of other services that do these functions well. Either give us a complete tool, or partner with services that complete the tool, please, but don’t add features like annotation, indexing, and online storage that are half-baked.
Whew. Sorry if I’m foaming at the mouth here, but they’re just not creating value and they’re not innovating anymore. They stopped trusting their original brilliance, they (apparently) caved to financial pressures, and now they’re doing the same damn thing as everyone else. Bleh.
Pearltrees had an extremely loyal following, if perhaps a niche one, which I wish they had embraced and taken the long-term view that eventually we loyalists could have evangelized the rest of the world with Pearltrees 1’s usefulness (this usefulness will become apparent when dimensionless grid view + large amounts of online storage = information overload). Here’s hoping they wake up or someone else sees the potential here and makes it happen.
Thank you for this interesting feedback!
As we said, our goal is to enable everybody to organize and share their interests. The ‘mindmap’ view was a good start to do so, but it has its limits, since everybody can’t use it easily.
That’ why we chose a simpler format.
Yet, you’ll see while using it, Pearltrees 2.à is very different from the other services : it lets you organize absolutely all the digital contents (web pages, files, photos), and display them and share them easily with others.
This is what makes Pearltrees really unique and powerful.
Kind regards,
PS : it’s very complex to let an access to two different verison on the App Stores, that’s why we only kept the access on the web version.
P.S. Yes, I am an idealist and a perfectionist and don’t fully understand the technical intricacies of all my lofty suggestions. I admit that.
You have no idea how much of my time you wasted by giving me no warning you changed your whole format. Because you think you know what’s better for me and how I use Peraltree shows how egocentric the people that run Pearltree are. Do all of us a favor-next time you essentially turn Pearltree into a completely different product, send everyone using it an email notice. Our time and energy is worth something.
I’ve given it multiple tries, and it’s just heartbreaking how much more enjoyable, functional, and powerful the old interface is to use.
Best of wishes, Pearltrees, and yet somehow also “RIP”
The new interface seems to me too similar to every other folder-based file browser.
I will be be using only version 1, because it was far more useful to me to be able to visualize the parent node and all of the child nodes simultaneously.
Perhaps I simply don’t understand why the PearlTrees developers believe the new interface is so much more powerful; perhaps some tutorials would be helpful for those of us who do not clearly see the benefits that are claimed.
Okay I am with xiwi on this. But that being said. I would request a couple of things.
1. Choosing which version you would like to start in. Mine always starts in 2.0 and I left many sites because of that. I went to you because of the similarity to RPG and Khan Academy.
2. Maybe think about a new goal or think about the supporters who have put in a lot with this. I understand you have a goal, but things change and things adapt.
With that said I love your old look and it allows me to order things in my chaotic patterns.
Kaos
I teach a class on online teaching to faculty at my college. The PT mind mapping feature was what the professors and students found so useful. They loved being able to demonstrate relationships between resources. It was such a revolutionary concept. Without that, you just have another bookmarking tool. There is no need for my college to use this tool now. I’m dropping it from my list of suggested tools to faculty, and I will no longer be teaching using this tool. I cannot imagine how this devolution can be seen as an improvement.
This update continues to detract from my experience of the site. While I am able to switch to the old view from my account, I cannot share that interface with people who are not registered users. This is supposed to help with sharing? I agree with earlier comments stating that the new interface is essentially a frustrating, clumsy, unattractive Pinterest clone. So you can share PDFs? You can do that with Google Drive, or any standard hierarchical file structure.
This may as well be an FTP for how intuitive it is.
I realize that the individual staff members weren’t plotting to take away a really nice organizational tool, but that’s what has happened. Here’s hoping some other developer picks up the mind map idea and supports it fully.
Hi,
Thanks for your interest in Pearltrees!
This new interface is easier for sharing because when you don’t know anything about Pearltrees and min mapping and you receive a collection, it’s even easier to understand than it was before. So, basically, everybody can now organize their collections, discover easily other’s collections, and share this with others.
Pearltrees interface stays unique as well: it’s the only place on the web where you can add any kind of digital content (web page, photos, notes, files), organize it as you want super easily (with a folder/subfolder structure), and enrich your collections with others collections closely related to yours.
We understand that you may be disappointed if you really into mindmapping, but Pearltrees never was a mindmapping tool. It was always a place to organize and share your interests.
Kind regards
Hi,
I don’t like the new interface!!! Where are my trees?????
Grtz
Ok have canceled my premium membership. This was the best program out for what I used it for. I don’t need a more clunky version of Pinterest even if it does have some better features. Do you really think I’m going to manually bring across my 2.1k pins from Pinterest.
This problem is simply resolved. Give people the option of the original or the new format on iPad.
Until I can use V1 on my iPad again pearlNOTtrees is of little use to me as is the premium membership.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your interest in Pearltrees!
We’re very sorry to hear that you don’t like the new version. Yet, even though the visualisation is more “common” Pearltrees is still unique: it’s the only place on the web where you can organize every content you like like this, where you can discover other contents related to your interests that have been organized by others, and share your collections with everybody.
And this new version makes all this more accessible for everybody 🙂
The real issue here is Flash. Obviously HTML5 made the pearl metphor difficult. Although I only found pearltrees a few days ago I spent several hours looking for the pearltree version in vain. It seemed to me the relational aspects might have been better for individual mapping/analysis of content objects. Hierarchical folders is so yesterday. I suspect this product is dead now as a me too pre – web 1.0 directory structure with bells on it. All because of a migration from flash and the “need” to participate in the trivia of the masses on snartphones
It’s just bookmarks now
This is the perfect webpage for anyone who wants to understand this topic.
You understand a whole lot its almost tough to argue with you (not that I personally will need
to…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a topic that’s been discussed for a long
time. Excellent stuff, just great!
I remember seeing Pearltree a year back and thought how great and unique it was. I made an account today in order to share links with work colleagues, but relised that the ‘pearl tree’ aspect was nowhere to be seen.
The pearl tree view was a great way of organising info, especially for artistic people, and offered something that Pinterest did not. Now, it just feels like Pinterest.
I’ll be removing my account and sticking with the Pinterest account I already have. Ill be back again in the future if and when the pearl tree view is offered.
Hi,
Thanks for your comment. There are a still a lot of difference with Pinterest: the ability to add any king of digital content, the ability to place your element anywhere in the grid, the ability to create collections and sub-collections, the ability to customize all your collection just the way you want and of course, all the consequences it has socially. In fact, the idea of Pearltrees hasn’t change, just the interface. The goal of this change is to make your collections more easy to share. If you give a try to the new interface, you may be suprised by its quality after a while.
Hi david,
The interface is not everything. The interface is interesting to create something. The things is the first interface was really interesting (if it hadn’t we would have been fools to develop it) but did not reach everything Pearltrees has always wanted to achieve : sharing organizations. Why ? Because some people just don’t get mind mappings and second because our interface was not a true mind map. So it became, insensibly a personnal organization tool. It’s just not Pearltrees goal.
Hi!
I really enjoyed the old version. I was searching for a regular mind mapping app back then, but then I found Pearltrees that was something way more interesting. I loved the visual; how you could see the connections like a mind map – but also click on and get to experience more about each pearl. Now I see no connections, and I do no longer enjoy it as it feels like Pinterest but including texts and websites. It feels unstructured and not intuitive. I was never interested in sharing, that part was a minus for me. Old Pearltrees was just for my personal use – to structure my ADHD-brain.
I think the problem is that a lot of people don’t use Pearltrees the way you want to.
* A lot of us didn’t care about the share-functions. Hey, sharing is everywhere – I prefer privacy when it comes to organizing my life. Making the sharing part easier is therefore just a minus to me.
* We liked to see the visual connections. This was something else from our computers with maps and no structure. I liked that I could have a great overview of everything without having to open maps, maps and more maps and suddenly get lost. The column on the left is not making the connections show in a good way. It’s no longer fun and intuitive. It feels messy and I get lost in it.
I’m sure Pearltrees is good in the way you want us to use it, but that part isn’t of interest to me (and honestly – look at the comments, almost noone likes the new look so I’m not alone).
Why not make a new old Pearltrees-like app for us who really liked it and used it to make structure and organize our life in a way that we got the whole picture? There are no good alternative for us today. We can either choose from the ugly no-picture-mindmapping apps with no ability to have collections of links and images or something Pinterest-like with no sense of structure and organization. (Yes, you think it’s organized but a lot of people don’t.)
You have the old code and even if people didn’t use it the way you intended to – why not see this as you stumbled upon a new app-idea? People loved it as it is truly a unique and helpful tool for us absent minded visual people.
…
And others, can you tell me any good alternative to old Pearltrees? I just spent a couple of hours finding nothing 🙁
Hi Jessica,
I can understand your frustration. It has been hard for us to leave the old interface also (and even more to work really hard on another one). However, Pearltrees is not committed to a visualization but to a promess to deliver a good way to “organize, explore and share everything you like”. The new interface do it better, expecially on the sharing part of it.
I invite you to take advantage of the new interface and to try to get used to its logic. However, you may be happy tknow that all your data are safed into Pearltrees and that you can export your tree structures and links inrdf or html from your account. Plus, the principal visualization modules from Pearltrees 1 will be released on the GitHub account of Pearltrees.
And no need to tell me that there’s a possibility to have the old version on computers. I only use it on my tablet because I want my planning tool to be with me all the time.
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I really don’t like the new interface for Pearltree. What made it unique has gone, which was to CONNECT PEARLS similar to a mind mapping software, so you saw how and why your specific pearl connected. I really loved its original USP. Now its like other apps out there, yes with different features. Don’t get me wrong its still good for curating content, but thats not the reason I joined pearltree. Im actually looking for something else that does what pearltree did before. Im even tempted to go back to mind mapping software.
I want the CONNECTIVE FEATURE OF CONNECTING PEARLS please Pearltree, that was what made it different and the best. It had the best of both worlds, connecting your thoughts together plus bookmarking and curating the connect.
The new interface is very nice, I like the new changes, BUT would love to have the connectivity feature to connect thoughts and ideas, that would make be go PREMIUM. 🙂
http://www.homebusinessdad.co.uk
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your comment. We went to Pearltrees 2 one year ago. We discontinued the original interface in December and released portions of the code on our GitHub account. We can’t maintain the two interface with our small team. It would have required us to support two different products on 3 different platforms. You can imagine what it means for each new features, etc… If you can go beyond mindmapping, and dig into the new version you’ll see that much of the original capabilities of the product remain, expressed in a more visually coherent way. Maybe in few time you’ll be able to connect ideas like you used to?
Where the hell is the old pearltrees? Had not come her for long as it seems it is GONE. The nodes connection (mindmapping look) was the distinctive feature in comparison with other services. Now it has none. A pitty
Thanks for your comment. We went to Pearltrees 2 one year ago. We discontinued the original interface in December and released portions of the code on our GitHub account. We can’t maintain the two interfaces with our small team. It would have required us to support two different products on 3 different platforms. You can imagine what that means for each new features, etc… If you can go beyond mind mapping, and dig into the new version you’ll see that much of the original capabilities of the product remain, expressed in a more visually coherent way. I think you’d be surprised at what you can do with the new version if you give it a fair chance. Especially on your phone. Pearltrees2 is a huge improvement on the smaller screens of mobile devices.
Symbaloo is already like this. I regret buying my subscription and want a refund. I “assumed” that once the block card within card outline was established, that a click would reveal a peal tree. I think this is not pealtrees, just some card short cut. Its pretty pointless. This service is of almost no use whatsoever, cards of saved websites are cards of saved websites. You should rename it from pearltrees to cards of saved websites.com.
Refund please.
Dr. Greg Ashley
Hi, please send us a request at contact [at] pearltrees [dot] com