The kOS of it all...
My colleague recently sent a friend the link to the Helper Systems product page on the App Store. He was met with the response “ I am concerned that the product is free,” his friend’s concern was that her data might be gathered by us and sold.
Despite the fact that it is very clearly stated on our product page that DATA NOT COLLECTED, she still had concerns. You do have to scroll down the page a bit to see it.
This is an issue of trust. We are an unknown company, offering a product for free, why should or would anyone trust us?
Our company’s thought: “Be the change you want to see in the World.”—Gandhi
Helper Systems wants users to feel confident about their privacy so we are offering a product, called kOS, that is software that does not track any data.
Twenty five years ago, a friend and I started a company called ebrary.
Back then we built software that created databases from PDF files, which we received from publishers. We then licensed those databases to universities, and corporations all over the world.?
An institution, licensing a database from ebrary, could get access to a digital database of more than 100,000 full-text of books, journals, magazines, maps, sheet music, and other documents to integrate into their library’s OPAC system.
The goal was to enable someone to open the book directly from the OPAC, but libraries needed to put more data in front of the book. Personally this drove me crazy, what could be more important than the book?
As a company, ebrary got as far as allowing people to upload their PDF files onto our servers. We had even built a software product which we licensed to the University of Toronto and Stanford University.
Ebrary really needed to become a software company. However, getting people to change was hard.
At the same time, it seemed, all of our competitors were being purchased by “billion dollar” companies. Google was doing their book scanning project. The writing was on the wall that we should find a partner to compete in the evolving market.
We had built a great business, had great customers and great resellers for our products. We were, for the most part, having a lot of fun and the business was doing well.
In 2010, I approached Andy Snyder, Chairman of Cambridge Information Group, at a trade show and suggested that if they wanted to do anything with us, we should do it quickly.
In 2011, ebrary was acquired by ProQuest, a member of Cambridge Information Group. We learned that when ProQuest bought us, they really hadn’t any interest in our strategy. They wanted an “eBook” offering and we fulfilled that need.
After the sale, I decided not to continue working at ProQuest. I eventually lost access to all the tools that ebrary had built over the previous years and the prototypes that we had created. It was around this time that I became aware of the weaknesses surrounding the information industry and the web.
Through a series of events, in particular—a grand sailing adventure—I was forced to ask myself, how can you have access to information, without relying on the Internet? I also needed to think about what I was going to do with my life. Although, I have never been short on ideas. My problem was all of my ideas were well outside of my knowledge base and experience. For instance, there was a robot that I wanted to build. I have a degree in Philosophy, no experience in building robots, but I thought I might give it a try.
When I delved into the 300+ PDF files I had saved, on robotics, I realized that I had a completely different problem on my hands.? There were not any tools I could use to help me in my quest to build this robot. My tools were Adobe Acrobat, folders and files—that was essentially it. There was nothing in software, or within the operating system of my computer that could help me learn, organize, synthesize, and create new information.
I started realizing the limitations of the operating system, to be able to know anything about the file, I actually had to fully open the file in the application. It was the only way to tell how many pages it had, if there were highlights, or if it had even been OCR’d (Optical Character Recognition—OCR is the process that converts an image of text into a machine-readable text format). Apple’s search would return lots of documents but then, after opening the document, I would then have to run a find, then retype the word or phrase I was looking for, and then go instance by instance to see if the content was relevant and repeat this process for every document. Is this how people do research??
This sucks, I thought to myself.
At the time, I did not find any applications that did what I thought I needed. The computer only offered folders, file formats and applications to help me. These had mostly been around for decades and really offered little to no help other than providing the ability to declare; “this file is here”.? Ultimately, the file, folder, and applications are the epitome of the status quo. They are what exist, and have existed, they are what everybody is used to, but really, nothing more.
How has this not changed?
My takeaway from this initial entry into research resulted in frustration: Why does the computer not offer tools to help users manage, read, understand and organize their information and thoughts??
I did not care for Evernote.?
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I suspected that I had stumbled upon an opportunity.? If I am having this problem, then others must be suffering from it too??
I reluctantly put the robot on hold, thinking that there would be benefits to solving the research problem first, as this was the potentially bigger problem and ultimately the more worthy one as if we solved it, more people might benefit.? I started thinking about ebrary, our successes, our missed opportunities, and my failures, and then I started talking with people.
Did anybody else have this problem, or see this as a? problem?
Some friends thought it was interesting, and we started working on how information might be made more easy to use.? We started a research project, that project was reimagined and Helper Systems evolved from that research.
Our product name, kOS (pronounced “chaos”), was based on a journal entry from June 20, 1994—A day I stayed home from work (I was working at Adobe at the time, on Acrobat. I was a marketing project manager) and had written down some ideas about how information could integrate with my life. We used it as our code-name, and when we had to name the product, we had become so? familiar with kOS, it stuck.
Our first innovation was the idea of working with and defining sets. Very seldom is the information you need in a single file. Information is more likely contained across multiple files, although a single well written file can get you most of the way there. We needed a means to either mine hundreds of files, or identify the single best written article that contains most of what you are looking for. Remember those 300+ PDF Files I had on robotics. When we finally had a functional prototype, I added the 300 files, and within 15 seconds after indexing the files, I found the 2 files that I needed to read. With kOS, a set Is defined by the files you add to kOS. You may create infinite sets.
Our second innovation was to come up with a way to communicate what information exists in any set. A collection of folders, especially if there is no metadata, was no better than a folder. Search was not good enough. The problem with search is that a user must know something about what he/she is searching. kOS needed to be a tool for discovery and exploration, as well as research. The user does not necessarily need to know about the subject, but may serendipitously explore and discover relevant or interesting information.
The third innovation was making kOS perform very quickly to navigate within the set of information. Users may immediately access any page of any PDF file within the set. Opening and closing PDF files can actually add up to a lot of time. kOS gives instant access to any page.
While we were imagining how this business might need to evolve, there were several issues we would have to “work around”.
The first was: No Servers.
We had to be software, running on your computer, with no checking if your license was valid. This was due to the fact that software on servers can not be independent.
Software running on your computer is yours to control. If the software has value, it exists as long as it runs and you have it on your computer.
We could not host, or offer hosting services. Copyrights are a thing. The US Congress keeps suggesting they might mess with section 230, the section that gives service providers protection from being publishers—we would prefer not to have to pay attention to what Congress is doing. Our software runs on your computer, with files that you have on your computer or cloud drive.
We do not wish to compete with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe or DropBox or any of the other cloud based services.? If you wish to have your files in the cloud, use your existing cloud service to put them there. If you can see files on your cloud, on your desktop, we will work with them.
Then there is the issue with the NSA and their ongoing surveillance of the American people. When I last read about it, the DOJ apparently?could subpoena a company for their records, the company was not able to disclose that they had been subpoenaed, and would have to provide access to the data. We do not wish to be a prospect to be subpoenaed. No data, no prospect.
These were the considerations we talked about while thinking about the software we would offer to the public. We value privacy.
When we were strategizing about our business, we imagined that this software would, should, and ultimately could be used by everyone, and we decided that having a free product was of the utmost importance.
Why? Because there is supposed to be no friction with free.
There is, apparently, a trust issue we did not anticipate. If this product is free, common logic states that users must therefore be the product. In our case, users are not and will never be the product. The product is just free.
The entire project, running on your desktop and offering no ability to track user’s use or behavior has been in our core DNA since we put our prototype down, and started developing our release code.
We felt that many of the ideas we had developed were important enough to put them in front of everyone.
Yes, we eventually hope to sell? “upgrades,” via a subscription model, by adding value to our product.?
For example:
From our perspective, Helper Systems believes we have developed a great foundation on which to innovate. We are deeply committed to the user experience and hope that what we are trying to do is valued by you.
We believe a users’ data is theirs. It should not be gathered, it should not be resold, and the only people that should have access to it is you. We do not have advertising, tracking, and we do not collect any data from within our application just as it says on the Apple App store, and, of course, the application is free.?