Twine As the New Interest Network

A fan of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton? Interested to find out everything about your idol, e.g. her latest news, photos, romances, articles, video clip, etc? A new search tool, Twine, has just released its beta. Having tagged itself as an “interest network”, Twine is not limiting itself as a social network or bookmarking system. It features a new and unique way via its “interest feed” to allow users to collect content and connect with groups of people who have the same interest. For instance, you can subscribe to “Paris Hilton” feed and you will be fed with Paris Hilton stuff via email alert or RSS Feed.

To get started, you need to register and sign in to Twine. You can thence use Twine search engine to track and find your topic of interest. Alternately, you can browse the list of topics available that interest you. Once you have found something interesting, such as Paris Hilton, you can filter your interest by selecting the relevant categories. You can refine your Paris Hilton search in accordance to categories such as related tags, related terms, related people, related places, etc. For instance, if you filter your search to’related people’, you can see lists of related people such as Obama, Britney Spears, David, Elizabeth, Ellen, Dagmar Schmidt Erkin, John Rabe, etc.

Besides getting the latest stuff on the topics which interest them, users can also set up their private Twine, e.g. Paris Hilton Twinie. They can connect with people who are fans of Paris Hilton or invite them to their private Twine to share information and rant & rave about Paris Hilton. Once users have initiated or published content to the public or private Twine, Twine will start analyzing and monitoring users’ interest and needs. Twine will thence make connections for users and recommend to users the related categories.

The average age for Twine users currently is around 30 years. Most of them are young professionals with medium to high income as well as education level. They find this “Interest Network” pretty interesting as they can share their interests in a unique way. Twine has come up with an innovative and creative idea. But can this new idea be sustained and continue to grow in this competitive market? We’ll have to wait and see…