Social Media Portal

JERSEY CITY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Twing.com, a powerful new search engine dedicated to finding information within forums and communities, today announced it has launched new features that can help brand managers gain insight into product and company discussions.

“Our Saved Search and Buzz Graph products were created for our users,” says General Manager Kevin Shea. “And they also have a lot of value for anyone tracking brand conversations.” Buzz Graphs let visitors see the popularity of various terms within the online community space, as well as refine terms by category and share the results with colleagues. Typical web users might find the results fun and interesting. For brand managers, it’s a valuable tool offering insight into what’s being said about products and companies.

“If today’s marketing is really about conversations and relationships,” says Director of Product Management Scott Germaise, “then good brand stewardship demands managers pay attention to the conversations happening in forums. Keeping track of web pages and blogs is not enough. The real person-to-person communication is happening in online forums.”

According to Forrester’s North American Social Technographics Online Survey, Q2, 2007, those who read online forums account for 28 percent of US Consumers – even more than blogs, which account for 25 percent. In terms of participation, 18 percent contribute to online forums, whereas only 14 percent comment on blogs, with 11 percent maintaining their own blogs. While blog writing and usage is considered explosive, the facts show that much of the online conversation is happening in forums.

“Online forums are an established – yet growing – medium people have been using even prior to blogs and social networks,” says Germaise. “But those who seek out online discussions to ask questions, seek and offer advice and so on haven’t had an effective means to seek out these spaces until now. Our goal is to help people find appropriate venues to participate in discussions by providing both a forum search and a directory resource.”

Twing offers multiple search options plus advanced filtering and sorting tools so people can effectively search forums in ways not available until the advent of Twing.com. The company also seeks to build even more awareness of the online forum space. Twing.com is easily used by entering search terms to quickly locate specific discussions and/or topics. Visitors can register – for free – to become a Twing.com member, participate in Twing.com’s forums and take advantage of current and upcoming personalization options.

About Twing.com

Launched in January 2008, Twing.com is a search engine dedicated to online communities and forums. Twing.com’s proprietary software and algorithms index thousands of forums and millions of conversations worldwide. Analyzing forum posts, topics, and whole forums provides highly accurate and relevant search results. For more information, visit www.twing.com.

Twing.com’s use of proprietary software and algorithms enables users to search into forum content well beyond the limitations of traditional search engines. With Twing.com, Internet users can search the rich user-generated content found in online communities and forums, and access these discussions through highly relevant, easy-to-read search results.

Forrester data reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Press. Excerpted from Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Copyright © 2008 Forrester Research, Inc.; All Rights Reserved.