Twine – Tie it All Together is a web 3.0 application that helps people discover and organize articles, blog posts, news and other resources relating to their interests and then share it with like-minded people. It is not mere a social bookmarking service. It is a complete social media service with a bit of social networking, wikis and blogging – a complete knowledge network indeed! The Twine social service was launched by Radar Networks and is now available in a beta version that requires an invite from the site to register. People are using this service and critics are evaluating it. However, the most prominent feature of this application is that it has been developed using web semantics/web 3.0 technologies.

A Twine user creates a ‘twine’ based on a particular subject or topic and then add things like bookmarks, documents, notes, products, photos and videos to it using the web interface, e-mail or bookmarklet.A Twine plugin in the browser is the best way to populate a twine.Twine semantically sorts the submitted data, tags it and categorizes it on the basis of people, places and organizations. The twines, created by different users, can be public or private. (Yadav, 2008) Twine users can also use RSS feeds to keep themselves up-to-date with all of the latest information and events. Another exciting feature of Twine is that users will also be able to import and export their own data. Richard MacManus on the ReadWrite blog explains the Twine in the word of its creator, Nova Spivack.

“Spivack described it to me as “knowledge networking”- i.e. it aims to connect people with each other “for a purpose”. It’s not based around socializing, but to share and organize information you’re interested in. Using Twine, you can add content via wiki functionality (there are many post types), you can email content into the system, and “collect” something (as an object, e.g. a book object).”

Twine claims itself to be a “semantic graph” due to its ability to map relationships to both people and topics. Twine is unique among other social media applications in the sense that it is entirely based on semantic web technologies like RDF, OWL, SPARQL and XSL.

Twine and social networking

Social networking is a strong aspect of Twine that is wisely merged with knowledge sharing. “If you share a Twine with others, each piece of content that someone brings into that online space is associated with that person.” So when you do a search, the results that come back are influenced not just by the tags, but also by who put the information into the Twine in the first place. “It’s the wisdom of crowds plus the wisdom of computers working together,” says Spivack. The more closely related that person is to you, the higher the relevance”, says Erick Schonfeld in his post, Twine Launches A Smarter Way To Organize Your Online Life, on the TechCrunch blog. If Twine gets acceptance from the internet community, then we can expect a change in the traditional social networking.

Will Twine be able to create an impact

Twine, in its beta version, is currently available to users. Is it really a great application? Is it delivering on its promises? Unfortunately, the service is unable to establish a solid reputation in the market. There are different technical, interface and performance issues. Although it claims to be a social bookmark service, this feature is not functioning properly. Maybe they will improve it before its final release. Similarly, its user interface is not organized and is unattractive. Marshal Kirkpatrick in his post, Twine Disappoints After Semantic Web Hype, gives similar feedback for Twine.

Problem: It Doesn’t Work Very Well

“The biggest problem with Twine right now may be that it doesn’t work as well as it should. It doesn’t consistently grab summary text or tags for pages you save in Twine, it doesn’t recognize article authors as relevant people and it often captures summary information about the domain you’re on instead of a particular page’s content.”

“Serious researchers will also be frustrated with the lack of support for authenticated (password protected) pages and the absence of RSS feeds -though feeds may come as soon as the app is public.”

Problem: It’s Poorly Organized

“Twine has bitten off a whole lot to chew on. It’s an impressive service for the most part. Unfortunately, full-featured social bookmarking is information-dense enough that adding all the semantic features and recommendations from Twine turns information architecture and User Experience into huge challenges.”

“Twine’s user experience is confusing. It’s hard to keep track of all the levels and types of information available, site navigation is dizzying and my use of the service happened in spite of the interface”.

The service is not as good as it should be, but it is unfair to declare it a failure. It‘s a new service and is in the beta stage, so we can assume that many of these issues will be fixed. I am sure the service providers will take these problems seriously and will improve its performance while enhancing its features.

To all my readers, try this service and share your feedback with me.

References:

Yadav.S. (2008). Twine: Social Bookmarking Meets the Semantic Web.Retrieved Oct. 30^th, 2008 from http://www.rev2.org/2008/04/18/twine-social-bookmarking-meets-semantic/

MacManus.R. (2007). Twine: The First Mainstream Semantic Web App.Retrieved Oct. 30^th, 2008 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twine_first_mainstream_semantic_web_app.php

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