Twing

Twing is a search engine specializing in internet forum content, located in Jersey City, New Jersey, with data centers around the world. Twing uses vertical searching as a forum search service that seeks out communities based on common forum formats.

Twing does not use the typical web crawler method but recognizes the footprint and structure of forum content and indexes such content according to its context, and then allows for word sense disambiguation of concepts through use of topical category and other filters.

Content disambiguation

To allow for disambiguation, Twing is utilizing interface concepts such as Faceted Search and Filtering in the Search Engine Result Pages, (SERPs). These are advanced search methods [cite web
last = Turbek
first = Stephen
title = Advancing Advanced Search
publisher = bozesandarrows
date = 2008-01-16
url = http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/advancing-advanced
accessdate = 2008-02-01 ] that attempt to assist users with their information foraging efforts by keeping them on an information scent trail. [cite book
last = Pirolli
first = Peter
title = Information Foraging Theory. Adaptive Interaction with Information
publisher = Oxford
date = 2007
isbn = 978-0-19-517332-1 ]

Category filters, based on the directory taxonomy, are one of the filtering methods available. This is an attempt to solve the generalized search problem of ambiguity that often occurs in search results as well as forum search results. A good example might be the word "bass." If you do a search for bass on Wikipedia, you get a disambiguation page to determine if the phrase in this case means a musical instrument, a company name, part of a place name, a beverage, and other options. While adding key terms to a search may sometimes collapse ambiguities, doing so can also exclude things of value. So category filters can help solve the problem of ambiguity in search engine results, whether such search engines are forum search specific or not. Additional filters are available based on language entity extraction from content and proprietary algorithms and dictionaries. Twing's use of such technology is discernible from seeing the filters available within the search results pages.

Forum content collection

The Twing robot, (called Twingbot), is designed to understand the formats of Internet Forums, (a.k.a. Bulletin Boards or Discussion Groups.) While the Twing product was open to the world in January, 2008, the Twingbot robot had been observed 'in the wild' at least several months earlier. (The Twingbot robot identifies itself as User-Agent: Twingbot/1.0 (+http://www.twingbot.com/)

ee also

* Internet forum
* Web search engine
* Vertical search
* List of search engines
* Word sense disambiguation

References

External links

* PC Magazine Search Without Google [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2329942,00.asp Part II Page 1] and [http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/0,1206,l=231732&s=25306&a=231735,00.asp Part II Page 2]
* [http://Twing.com Twing Forum Search / Directory]
* [http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5390391 ABC News: Ahead of the Curve]
* [http://www.appscout.com/2008/03/twing_search_forums_and_discov.php/ AppScout: Twing - Search Forums and Discover Communities]
* [http://mashable.com/2008/07/15/twing-buzz-graph/ Mashable: Twing Buzz Graphs]
* [http://www.redferret.net/?p=10140 Red Ferret Journal March 11, 2008 Article]
* [http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/016641.html SEO Roundtable: Search SEO Forums and More with Twing]
* [http://www.tech2all.com/2008/05/03/twing-the-forum-search-engine/ Tech2All: Twing - The Forum Search Engine]
* [http://wrightoncommunications.blogspot.com/2008/07/hear-buzz-be-buzz-with-twingcom.html About Buzz Reputation Tracking in Forums]
* [http://2ohreally.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/twing-searching-the-deep-web/ Twing: Searching the Deep Web]