We believe continued growth in the volume of personal content, together with a shift to a multi-device personal computing environment, will inevitably lead to the development of Personal Content Databases (PCDBs). These databases will make it easier for users to find, use, and replicate large, heterogeneous repositories of personal content. In this paper, we describe the PCDB used to power Bloomba, a commercial personal information manager in broad use. We highlight areas where the special requirements of personal content and personal platforms have influenced the design and implementation of our PCDB. We also discuss what we have and have not been able to leverage from the database community and suggest a few lines of research that would be useful to builders of PCDBs.
Raymie Stata, Patrick Hunt, Thiruvalluvan M. G.