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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Twing.com: Searching Online Forums and Communities Just Got Easier

Twing.com, a powerful new search engine dedicated to finding information within forums and communities, today announced it’s taken the ‘beta’ label off its logo. “Initial response to our product has been great and after making changes based on feedback along with adding new features, we feel the product is ready for prime time,” say General Manager Kevin Shea. You’ll have to check out the site yourself to see if you agree.

Twing recently added more features for members and non-members alike. “We’ve added a handy Saved Search feature so users can now easily keep track of their favorite searches and get updated results,” says Shea. “Additionally, a useful and fun tool is our new Buzz Graphs feature, which allows visitors to see the popularity of various terms within the online community space, as well as refine terms by category and share the results with colleagues.”

Some of our readers might find searching Twing fun (you know who you are) or perhaps, a big waste of time. We didn’t find too much relevant content when we searched for “Darwin Information Typing Architecture” (a simple Google search was far more useful in this scenario). However, a search for “XML” and another for “iPod” clearly illustrated the value of this type of niche search. For brand managers, it’s a potentially valuable tool offering insight into what’s being said about products and companies,” says Shea. Twing is also in the process of adding a variety of tools for Forum Owners as well.

The key thing to know about Twing, according to Director of Product Management Scott Germaise, is that, “Twing.com searches across real conversations between real people in the forum space. Forum search can now take its place next to blog search as an important tool for users to seek out and participate in online social spaces.” According to Forrester’s North American Social Technographics Online Survey, Q2, 2007, those who read online forums account for 28 percent of US Consumers – even more than blogs, which account for 25 percent. In terms of participation, 18 percent contribute to online forums, whereas only 14 percent comment on blogs, with 11 percent maintaining their own blog.

“Online forums are an established – yet growing – medium people have been using even prior to blogs and social networks,” says Germaise. “But those who seek out online discussions to ask questions, seek and offer advice and so on haven’t had an effective means to seek out these spaces until now. Our goal is to help people find appropriate venues to participate in discussions by providing both a forum search and a directory resource.”

In addition to Twing’s multiple search options, the site offers advanced filtering and sorting tools so people can effectively search forums in ways not available until the advent of Twing.com. The company also seeks to build even more awareness of the online forum space. Twing.com is easily used by entering search terms to quickly locate specific discussions and/or topics. Visitors can register – for free – to become a Twing.com member, participate in Twing.com’s forums and take advantage of current and upcoming personalization options.

These types of technologies are making possible new and useful views into existing information channels. For instance, if Twing were to add an RSS feed option, search results could be syndicated by topic or keyword on a site like The Content Wrangler Community. There are tools already taking advantage of this approach. MarkMail, powered by Mark Logic Server, is also a useful search engine that allows you to look inside the discussions that occur on listservs. They already have the RSS option available. Smart. And, a trend we’re sure is going to continue.

See also, Forget Listserv Digests—You’ve Got MarkMail: Interview With Jason Hunter, Mark Logic

Filed under: Content Reuse : Marketing Communication : RSS : Technological Innovation : User-Generated Content

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