Since I am a little tired of looking at libraries’ websites and OPACs I will take a look at a new organizational tool in beta testing called Twine that I found out about from a New York Times article on it a while back. Twine is a web application that enables users to organize, share, and discover information in new and interesting ways. It is also based on Semantic Web technologies and attempts to utilize those technologies in a way that people find accessible and useful.
First, Twine is an intriguing tool for organizing a wide array of digital documents and information. Users can save web pages, videos, photos, etc. to Twine via a bookmarklet from their web browser. They can also add content such as notes, messages, and attachments by emailing them – every twine has a unique email address. When content has been added is when the interesting stuff begins. Twine searches the added content using algorithms to recognize certain pieces of information, such as names of people, places, and businesses. It then automatically tags and indexes the content using the information from the algorithm. Several of the beta testers quoted in the New York Times article liked the time-saving aspect and consistency in tagging offered by the automated tagging. Users can also tag their digital content manually if they so desire.
Users can choose whether to make their different collections, or twines private, share them in a group of users with shared interests, share them with a group of designated users, or make them public. The Twine website touts the application as a better way to publish and share information, whether with friends and family, online communities of interest, a team for collaboration on a project, or the public.
Somewhat like Amazon and Google, Twine can learn about you and your interests. Twine uses this information to recommend people with similar interests, and twines and particular items that meet your interests. I suppose that this feature uses technology similar to Amazon’s recommender system. It will also recommend particular items similar in content to the thing you are currently viewing.
In addition to connecting users to recommended content and/or people, Twine can be used for discovering new information. It offers an “Explore” page that shows the most active twines, new twines, the most active members, and the most popular people, places, and organizations across all twines. This can be used to find out what things, subjects, issues, etc are the most popular on Twine at a given moment. Twine also lets users search, filter, and sort information so they can find what they are looking for better.
The information on Twine’s website is somewhat sparse on the specifics of what it can actually do. Since, it is in an invite-only beta test, I couldn’t actually test it out for myself to see if it works as advertised or assess its capabilities. However, from the information I have been able to find about Twine on its website and in the New York Times article, it appears to be an interesting way for people to organize digital information.
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