Currently in stealth mode but scheduled to launch in the coming weeks, Portland-based Imindi promises to bring the visual aspects of traditional mind-mapping software to a broader spectrum of activities. The aggressive product vision, outlined on the Imindi blog, has the product helping with everything from collaborative writing to collaborative search to social bookmarking.
At its foundation, the company describes the Imindi product as a “thought engine”:
The Imindi Thought Engine enables you to input your Thoughts and the semantic connections between them (Why, What, Where, When, Who, How) in a naturally radiant fashion with one thought radiating outward to one or many asoociated thought that themselves radiates outwards towards other thoughts which radiate outwards towards others and so on and so forth. The interface is essentially a visual map of your mind what we call a “Journey” here at Imindi.
The concept is interesting. But it is important to note that the visual aspect of the mind-map is not especially expansive—at least at this point. Currently, the Imindi product relegates the results to the first orbit, the items within direct connection of the central thought.
Personally, I’ve always found the value of graphic representations of the nature to be the orbits that are 3 to 4 steps away from the initial thought. This is where you start seeing the really interesting stuff happening.
With Imindi’s current product, you can definitely get to that point—one a click at a time–but as far as I can tell, you cannot currently see the entire universe or the path that led you to your current thought. [Update] The Imindi folks were nice enough to swing by and comment on the exact functionality I was seeking: expanded maps.
Obviously, is that it’s incredibly easy for me to sit here and pitch stones with no idea of how much work the algorithms and relationship logic actually took. So, while I criticize, I’d encourage you to take a look for yourself by visiting Imindi.
Imindi has received seed funding from Mind Fund of Portland.