Swedish search engine Twingly announced Tuesday that it has launched a new microblog search that will allow users to find information and users on sites like Twitter, Jaiku, Identi.ca, and others. Twingly's search service includes a widget that can be embedded into a blog. The company's executives say verbs like "save, retweet, reply, comment should be implemented in the search result."
WeFi, a company that provides information on where to find Wi-Fi hot spots, announced Tuesday that it has launched an online directory to find over 1 million different hot spots. More compelling, the company also announced that users will now be able to send a text message with their location to WeFi, and it will return a complete list of nearby hot spots. Unfortunately, the service charges 50 cents plus standard text-messaging rates. It's available now.
TechCrunch is reporting that online photo sharing site Flickr hasn't been serving ads properly over the past few days. When an advertisement is clicked, it's displayed in a frame inside the window instead of redirecting the user to the advertiser's site. Flickr has yet to comment on the issue.
Yammer, an enterprise microblogging solution, announced Tuesday that it has raised $5 million in a Series A round of financing that was led by the Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures. Yammer executives hope to use the funding to expand its presence in the enterprise space.
Online streaming service Ustream has launched its iPhone app that allows users to watch streaming Ustream channels from Apple's mobile device. The free app requires a Wi-Fi connection to work. It was launched in tandem with the presidential inauguration so users could watch all the festivities on their iPhone.
Searching forums for specific posts can seriously suck. Most have proprietary search tools that can be unfamiliar or downright difficult to use. Some even require you to fill out a captcha to avoid getting attacked by bots or having its forums infested with spam. Twing is a new service that's attempting to solve these problems with a search tool that scours hundreds of user forums and lets you search by individual posts or a topic thread all in one place.
I found it to do a pretty good job giving me some basic results with simple queries. You can also filter down your results with a myriad of tweaks, right down to what type of forum content you're looking for, be it audio, video, or images. These filters and special terms can be stacked on top of one another, letting you hone your search a little or a lot depending on how much effort you put in. I found I was able to get a general list of posts that had something to do with what I was searching for with a fairly minimal amount of effort--which is a good thing.
In addition to a search, there's an entire directory of forums listed alphabetically or by interest. This is actually one of the coolest facets of the site, as it will tell you how many posts and users a forum has, along with its growth (presumably within the past 30 days). It's a great way to see what's hot, regardless of what forum platform it's on.
What wasn't working when I tried out Twing earlier today was a neat little info button that expands below each search result. I'm assuming it gives you a quick overview about the forum the post is in, but it was coming up blank. Presumably when it's working, you can see whether the forum you're about to view the post on is populated with a large audience and a lot of topics, or just small with good SEO.
Competing forum search tools include: Boardreader, Omgili, and BoardTracker.
Related: Meetro team launches Lefora, free hosted forums
Search forums for exactly the post you're looking for with Twing. (click to enlarge)
(Credit: CNET Networks)
(Credit:
Primelabs AB)
There are countless blogs across the world, but you can't read them all, of course. With the screensaver application Twingly, however, you can at least see every new blog post as it gets published...sort of. While Twingly appears to be a fascinating application, you may soon be overwhelmed by the random collection of nonsense and trivia--the "Um ... what?" post referenced in my title is a good example.
Twingly, which runs as a Windows screensaver or a standalone application, displays a never-ending string of new blog posts mapped around the world on an interactive globe. Click on any of the scrolling posts on the left side, and a precis of the post and its geographical location (if mapped) are displayed in the main interface. Click on the link in the blog excerpt, and you'll be transported to that page in your default browser. ... Read more
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