Searching is Easy – Finding a Community is Hard

Twitter, Twine, and now Twing – I have signed up for all these web applications that start with “Tw!”

Twing is a specialized search engine for deep searches within community discussion groups or forums. So if you want to find niche communities or specialized discussion, actual online conversation, about a topic or a brand, Twing offers a way to search through community content that Google or other search engines may miss. Twing sports a directory listing of different communities so you can click down through the forums that interest you (or may be of interest to your clients or customers).

Especially fun at election time and Trick-or-Treat time is the Twing Buzz Chart. Here’s a comparison of some favorite candies for Halloween – candy corn is obviously being talked about much more than the other chocolate-y goodies! The default on the site right now is comparing Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin.

Twing was recently named one of Laptop Magazine’s Top 50 Web Tools of 2008 in the November 2008 (alas, printed edition only), and also is listed in PC Magazine’s 15 alternatives to Google’s “classic” search.

Mashable’s Kristen Nicole reviewed it when it was still in pre-beta in February 2008, with Twing:Another Funny Name for Forum Search and she noted the nice use of filters in the sidebar to filter through the results, saying “I was happy to see a rather extensive filtering sidebar that’s present for narrowing down all of your search results. Modify existing searches by category, forum name, exact phrase inclusion or exclusion, and more. This is helpful in the sense that it lets you sift through the forums without having to read through all of them.”

I’d imagine you could search for communities related products, hobbies, concepts, clubs, bands, brands, groups, events, and people. If your goal is to find others to talk to online, Twing is your site.

Updated to add: Apparently Twing is no more as reported by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch December 1, 2008. Just wanted to be sure to let readers of this entry know why the link won’t work!