adrianmott.com

Twingly, a blog search engine who is dedicated to delivering ’spam free results’ has announced that they’re coming out with a new meme-tracker web application that appears to be a cross between Digg, Techmeme and FriendFeed.  The service appears to function by defining channels for news articles to appear, and then display discussion on those particular articles from other sources.  One of the most popular meme trackers out there is Techmeme and the accompanying sites (Memeorandum is an excellent world news and politics meme tracker).

I’ve always believed that this layout of viewing the news is superior to the straight forward newspaper model.  Stories as they are played out and unfold take turns and twists and develop, not just in their literal actions, but they also develop opinions around them as time passes.  Memes in the news allow us to track and read into these discussion ideas as they develop, which is pretty darn compelling if you ask me.  Techmeme has done a great job of doing this since Gabe Rivera launched the sites a number of years ago.  I’m a little surprised that more traditional news and media outlets haven’t adopted similar models.  Some of the TV and cable news outlets have tried to incorporate some of this by showing people’s tweets, but perhaps it’s time for news companies to embrace other sources besides just their own and their syndicates.

What’s exciting me about the new Twingly application is the fact that their stories include ‘linked to’ articles (like Techmeme), but it also includes tweets that include words from the topic in question.  Twingly has a potential winner here if they can execute the site and its functionality.  Check out some screen shots: