I've signed up and will let you know what I find when I'm allowed in! From their press release today...
Today we launch a next-generation blog search engine at Twingly.com. Participate in the invite-only beta by getting invited or signing up at beta.twingly.com. So what’s cool with the new Twingly.com?
Spam free, social search
Twingly takes a zero-spam approach to blog search using an algorithmically expanding white list instead of the traditional blacklist. Powerful moderation tools allows us to win the fight against spam by one-click removal of clusters of tens of thousands of spam blogs. Fat tail manual moderation yields quality input to long tail algorithmic filtering.
Social search features allows users to share quality content with each other and the community as a whole.
Powerful search language and tech plan Digg
Twingly provides the world’s most powerful search language for blogs, where search filters can be combined in new ways.
But we’re not done by far! Participate in voting on our tech plan by signing up for the beta. JSON api? OPML import or APML export? Help us decide what’s next!
UPDATE
Well I've got my invite and I've logged in to take a look.
First impression = FAST. Particularly compared to Technorati, although that may have more to do with the size of their respective databases and userbases than any technological advantage.
I love the layout, and the overall design is very pleasing on the eye.
The language selection beats current blog search tools. I found 38 blog posts about Yahoo quickly and easily in Albanian (well, Twingly tells me they're written in Albanian!).
More generally, setting any of the search filters is intuitive and simple. Listing the inbound links to a specific blog is one obvious click away, and users can vote on posts Digg-stylee to add another dimension to finding relevant and influential content.
Search comparison with Technorati
I compared the results delivered up by Twingly with those returned by Technorati for the simple search query "Taptu" (fab mobile search... check them out at http://www.taptu.com)...
Firstly, you can't deny that Twingly is considerably more attractive, and that's no reflection on Gordon Brown appearing on Technorati this morning. Appearance is not a deciding factor I'll grant you, but an essential component of usability nevertheless.
Twingly returns 51 results, and Technorati 156. The first result for Technorati, "Top tech startups in Europe" from Techcrunch, appears fourth in Twingly. More interestingly, Twingly's first result relates to Taptu's acclaim in Barcelona (re. Mobile World Congress... my post on that) yet any reference from Barcelona is relegated to the third page of results from Technorati.
And therein lies the main difference to date. Twingly, this Swedish company, currently excels at focusing on European blogs. Here's how they put it on their website:
While our eventual goal is nothing short of world dominance, we are currently focusing our efforts on European blogs. Having said this, our index already includes many blogs from all over the world.
So in conclusion, Twingly is an additional tool in your digital media relations armoury, and not a substitute; yet.
