Swedish start-up Twingly sent out an email yesterday to its 3000 private beta testers that their blog search engine goes live on Thursday. This is not just an engine in the line of Google Blogsearch or Technorati, since it offers spam-free results. Every blogger can ping the service, but the people behind Twingly only select the high-quality ones. The engine also has a 3.0 touch to it, as users can ‘like’ posts – which will affect the search results positively.
It doesn’t stop here though, as CEO Martin Källström and his team want to use their search engine as the basis for developing “kick-ass products”. A fine example is the Twingly Blogstream, a service that aimes to connect mainstream media with bloggers. This objective is close to my heart, as I believe that the majority of media consumers miss out on all the blog fun.
Connecting mainstream and blogs
Right now, Twingly offers a related blogposts widget to fourteen newspapers from all over Europe and one from South-Africa. On top of that, a bunch of Swedish magazines use the services of Twingly. So when a reader of these publications reads an article about the weak dollar, Twingly also suggests some posts from the blogosphere covering the same topic. This is a subtle and valuable way of introducing people to that oh so special world of blogs as the content is really relevant to them.
From a search engine to fun apps
To prove that the blogosphere really is a special world, Twingly has also developed a fun product: the Twingly Screensaver. This program shows a fancy visual representation of the state of the blogosphere, which looks like this:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgIT-hfgOXY&]
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I think products like this spectacular screensaver are developed to let Twingly go viral. I’m pretty sure the guys from Twingly won’t deny this, as they tend not to hide their ambitions. Their eventual goal is “nothing short of world dominance”. In order to reach that, Twingly is currently focusing its efforts on European blogs. Smart move, as it will be hard enough to get engines like Blogsearch and Technorati out of people’s minds. When they’ve charmed Europe with their fun apps, spam free results, and a clear promise that they’re specifically focusing on this continent, the Swedes will probably head for the United States. This tactic might pay off, as Twingly really creates an unique blog experience.
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