Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Information geeks and semantic web watchers have been tracking the progress of Twine since the fall of last year, and I just received an invitation to their Beta test.

It's hard to define what Twine does without diving deep into Web 3.0 jargon, but here goes.  It's a knowledge-sharing platform that attempts to organize streams of information found on the web- pages, images, emails, videos, etc. - into clusters that the company calls Twines.  Unlike a wiki or a shared extranet like BaseCamp, Twine uses the intelligence hidden in way the content is tagged to infer relationships between different pieces of information, similar to del.icio.us. Users who upload information can also define relationships between different pieces of data themselves.

Twine also weaves together a number of Web 2.0 capabilities into one package: 
Like social networks, you can hobnob with other people who share your interests
Like newgroups, you can subscribe to feeds on topics that interest you that are being assembled by the community.
Like an improved StumbleUpon, Twine will suggest different articles and pieces of content based on your information streams and your relationships with others.

It's always tricky to review a new service after only a couple of days of use.  It's a very ambitious undertaking that has the Web geek community buzzing (see reviews from ReadWriteWeb and WebWare).  But as it's currently organized, Twine really does make the Semantic Web concept seem...dull.  Like Wikipedia, the success of the project is entirely dependent on a large, active user base and the power of the network effect.  And that user base currently consists of uber-geeks.  No surprise that #1 topic on this Semantic Web is...the Semantic Web. 

I would love to see Twine remade (ie remarketed) for a more mainstream audience.  Think what plugged-in tween girls could do with a product like this. Forget a Zac Efron fansite- this could be the hub for all things High School Musical, all things Hannah Montana, all things Gossip Girl.  I think acquiring a mass audience is the only way that this product will come to cover the entire Web, which must be the ultimate promise of a Semantic Web application.

http://www.twine.com 

Misha Cornes