People Search Digest

The blogosphere’s rise to global prominence has given anyone with a keyboard and Internet connection a voice - fourteen year olds pouring their pre-teen hearts out to the online ether, tech blogs revealing cool new gadgets, and politicos shaping the face of current events with their opinions. However, with any widespread access the good stuff is outweighed by the utterly craptastic (consider Youtube). To help solve this problem, several blog search engines were formed; they separate blogs into various categories and allow a user to search for specific topics. They are wide ranging and all inclusive, which has its negatives. Spam blogs litter the Internet, and most blog search engines don’t weed them out properly.

Twingly, a new Sweden-based blog search engine, promises to change all that. They aim to offer a spam-free search engine initially limited to European blogs, at the cost of inclusiveness. Exclusivity allows Twingly to control which blogs they include in their index, which makes achieving a 100% spam-free environment possible. Instead of cataloguing every blog in existence and enacting anti-spam measures on existing pages, Twingly will begin with a small cadre of reputable, reliant blogs that are proven to be quality content. Then they will branch out by linking to other blogs, operating under the assumption that real blogs won’t link to spam blogs. If that assumption is sound, the result is an ever-growing searchable index of very legitimate blogs.

As of a couple days ago, Twingly entered private beta. Invitations are limited, but anyone can go to their homepage to sign up for a shot at one. Don’t count on getting in just yet though; excitement for this new engine has been building as the tiny company nets more and more partnerships with European news publishers. Much like Technorati, Twingly wants to partner with news sites to offer news-related blog posts. They may not compete with the larger engines stateside just yet, but Twingly hopes to solidify the European base before venturing across the pond. Look for a public launch in the next month or two.