Trapit: Search without Search
April 18, 2012
Trapit at www.trap.it is an automated finding system. Software “watches” what a user reads and then performs a “more like this” function. The results are not a laundry list. The presentation is similar to that used in Flipboard and Pulse. The idea borrows from iPhone and iPad apps with some DARPA money stirred into the mix. The inventors or implements worked at SRI, the blue chip technology consulting firm which used to be the Stanford Research Institute. the company is getting a little PR push, but it has been in business since January 2010.
You can read the CrunchBase profile at Chattertrap. Heavy weight real journalist John C. Dvorak covered the company in his “Trapit, the Non-Search Engine” article at PCMag.com. TechCrunch characterized the company as a Siri sibling. The reason is that Trap.it and Siri share some artificial intelligence methods.
The big news is that in January 2012, the company landed $6.2 million in addition to the US government money.
These “we will tell you what you need to know” systems are going to become more prevalent. These “smart” systems are ideal for information grazers who have neither the time, desire, or expertise to perform old fashioned research.
Will a user know when a potentially important article has been filtered out of the stream? Nah. Won’t matter. Today’s MBAs and former middle school teachers are too busy to dig for info, verify it, and assemble their own synthesis. And magazines produced the old fashioned way have zero chance to gain traction with certain demographics.
Stephen E Arnold, April 18, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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