Upfront Ventures’ Post

Comparing a screen to a rainforest? WTF does that mean? That was my first reaction when jake harper shared with me his vision for SOOT and why he thought the file system and user interfaces needed to be rethought from the ground up. Current search, feed or file system experiences are inherently linear. Scrolling for days or in some cases you are having to click through multiple pages of content. Perhaps someone gets a bit more fancy and presents information in a grid style structure sorted by one dimension. The experience only allows our brain to consume a very finite set of information in an extremely rigid structure often times searching for hours on end for those series of items we need. A rainforest (or other immersive experiences in nature) allows users senses to be consumed by thousands of sounds and visual stimuli all at the same time. SOOT attempts to recreate this dynamic through a proprietary combination of both advanced AI infrastructure and front end web technology. The feeling is almost like playing a video game as you are able to swim through information efficiently organized across a multitude of dimensions and seamlessly find what you are looking for in a way traditional linear systems just don't support. Seeing is believing, so can try out a tease of what they built through some of the few “playgrounds” they have begun to share that span from reimagining e-commerce with SSENSE where they have created an accessories shop of 15K items to exploring nature like never before. Very soon anyone will be able to build their own SOOT space with any asset type. You can read more about SOOT in Allie Garfinkle's piece in today’s Fortune Term Sheet and stay tuned for so much more that will be coming from household names you know who are already on the journey we at Upfront Ventures chose to go on with the team! https://lnkd.in/gVxgw8Me