Google launches experimental, AI-based, Pinterest-like service Keen


Google’s experimental division, Area 120, just launched 
Keen. It’s an interest based social network — not unlike Pinterest — where you can create and follow collections of topics you are interested in. 

Collecting ideas and interests on the web is not a new idea, of course. Services like Pinterest and Pocket have been around for years, and Microsoft’s Edge browser has Collections as a feature. 

However, when exploring a new topic, it might not always be clear where to start looking. Keen tries to tackle this by using AI to serve you these resources, based on the general topic and a few additional search terms you can add (there are suggestions). The user eventually decides what ends up in their keen, making all of them hand-curated lists.

It’s also possible to add your own links to a keen, making the tool useful for experts who’d like to share their knowledge and resources as well.

Google has a long history of (unsuccessful) social networks and also launched and axed multiple collection related platforms, such as Spaces, although Google Collections still exists and it’s possible to, for instance, directly save images from search results. It’s also noteworthy that Keen is released as an Area 120 project, rather than a Google product.

Keen is currently available on the web and Android, although that seems to be a web app.

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