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An interesting new home screen now appears when connecting to the internet at a Starbucks store.
It includes an ever-changing set of “cards”. Each has information about nearby locations, popular online searches, and a few news headlines. It’s notable because Starbucks has tried quite a few “start” screens. None have been good.
The new version shows promise. That’s because the new Starbucks home screen aligns with a generation of personalization that isn’t just aggregating a bunch of news stories anymore. Rather, this new generation is being used to bring a lot of tangentially related information and activities together in one place.
The result: An “actionable” view of your world. This trend can be seen in a wide variety of places.
For instance, mobile apps from Aviate and Cover help you decide when to use different apps on your mobile devices. To do it, they combine information about the world around you with metadata about the apps on your phone. This lets them build a custom list of apps for you on the fly based on your ever-changing needs.
The same sort of thing can be seen in a new mobile app from the tech site Engadget. Similar to the Starbucks start screen, its Engadget Mini app aggregates tech-related information from a variety of unrelated sources, such as Twitter and Facebook, on a set of “cards.” By pulling it together at once, you get a fast take on the tech world.
Apparently, people are responding to this new take on personalization. That’s why Yahoo — which has been talking about personalization since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO in 2012 — said it was buying Aviate in early January.
To be fair, these new randomized personalization schemes are more an evolution than a revolution.
That’s because they sit between two unrelated trends. First, the card interface. It took hold roughly two years ago when Pinterest’s popularity erupted. Its design technique — which places a “playing card” of information on a neutral-colored background — has proven important because it makes it easy to draw unrelated information together at once.
The visual metaphor has helped software developers envision new technical ideas online.
Second, data and other information are exploding online. We’re all effectively digitizing our entire lives there. We’re constantly posting thoughts and organizing activities there, while also calling up all sorts of mobile apps and websites on tablets and smartphones in all sorts of different locations.
As a result, software developers now have access to a lot of new types of raw material online. This means that they can sort through it all to decide which bits and pieces you should see at any given time. In other words, they’re finally using personalization to do something useful for you.
They’re excluding information. In the past, they always used it to include information.
For instance, personalization might be used to create a “personalized” version of a newspaper. This never really worked out in practice. Despite what people say, most people really just want to read a story or two a day, or, even, a week. As a result, personalized newspapers can seem a bit like an endless sea of marginally interesting stories better suited to an intellectually rigorous academic than ordinary civilians.
The new take on personalization is really just the happy result of our great love for new internet technologies. But, it also just goes to show that low-tech truths still rule in a high-tech world.
Less, as they say, is more.
(Disclosure: James Abels runs a startup working on new ways to design and deliver media.)
