Tech Status Quo

Update: Check this story out on Slashdot!

A few days ago I talked about Twing, a new search engine that crawls the internet looking for forum posts and spits them back in relevant order. After doing a bit more searching, an even better “forum search engine” popped up, Omgili.

Now Omgili does make some powerful claims, namely to be the best search engine in the known universe. I don’t know if I agree with that, but so far it seems damn good. A description of Omgili from the about page:

Omgili is your way to find “subjective information”. As opposed to traditional search engines, which search for sites and pages, Omgili finds consumer opinions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, answers and solutions. Most of the questions have already been answered - find the answers through Omgili. Most of the technical problems have been solved - find the solutions through Omgili. Most of the experiences have already been described - Find these descriptions through Omgili.

Omgili claims to crawl over 100,000 forums on a regular basis, cataloging millions of forum posts in their search database.

Probably the coolest thing about Omgili is the Buzz Graph that shows up on every search page denoting how frequently that search term is talked about on the internet. Below is an example of a Buzz Graph with Google and Microsoft on it:

Overall, Omgili is a good resource for finding opinions and extremely obscure facts. For general knowledge searches, turn to one of the big three.

Tag this at Technorati: Buzz Graph, Google, microsoft, omgili, search engine, twitter

In the search world, competition is fierce. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo pour millions of dollars into advertising their search engines to gain every last user on the internet. There is a new player in the business now thought, and it looks like Twing is going to hit the ball out of the park.

Twing is an “alternative search engine” that I found while perusing the farthest corners of the internet (yes, the internet is square). By alternative, Twing is just “not one of the big 5″. That’s catchy. But the important question to ask any new search engine is, “Does your search work?”

I was pretty skeptical about Twing when I first arrived at their homepage. Supposedly, it searches forums and forum posts, rather than searching plain old static pages. Interesting, haven’t ever seen that before. This is what Twing has to say about itself:

We’re dedicated to the world of online communities and forums. Our intent is to enable you to quickly find highly relevant communities and discussions pertaining to your interests, as well as keep you informed on the latest trends influencing communities. Members of Twing also can track activity on their favorite forums and stay informed on updates via custom alerts.

Again, you can promise the world, but can you deliver?  Let’s see what Twing can find for me…

Me: Simpsons Bartender
Twing: 255 results, first one included ‘Moe’
Not bad….

Me: 1980 Olympics
Twing: 2100 results, second one was about the USA hockey team - exactly what I was looking for
Very nice

Me: Tetris creator
Twing: 312 results, first one including Alexey Pajitnov.
I am extremely impressed

Overall, Twing did a great job handling search requests and providing an easy way to find information without following deep link trees.  The user interface is also very nice and easy to use.  Twing is definitely going to make an impact in the search engine world, watch out Google.

Tag this at Technorati: 1980 Olympics, Alexey Pajitnov, forum, Google, google rival, microsoft, new .com, search engine, SEO, Simpsons, Tetris creator, twing, Yahoo