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What is a swicki?
A swicki is new kind of search engine that allows anyone to create deep, focused searches on topics you care about. Unlike other search engines, you and your community have total control over the results and it uses the wisdom of crowds to improve search results. This search engine, or swicki, can be published on your site. Your swicki presents search results that you‘re interested in, pulls in new relevant information as it is indexed, and organizes everything for you in a neat little customizable widget you can put on your web site or blog, complete with its very own buzz cloud that constantly updates to show you what are hot search terms in your community.
How does my swicki work?
Swickis are a new kind of search engine or search results aggregator. Swickis allow you to build specific searches tailored to your interests and that of your community and get constantly updated results from your web or blog page. Swickis scan all the data indexed in Yahoo Search, plus all additional sources you specify, and present the results in a dynamically updated, easy to use format that you can publish on your site - or use at swicki.com. We also collect and organize information about all public swickis in our Directory. Whether you have built a swicki or not, you can come to the swicki directory and find swicki search engines that interest you.
Why does swicki sound like wiki?
Swickis are like wikis in that they are collaborative. Not only does your swicki use Eurekster technology to weight searches based on the behavior of those who come to your site, in the future, your community - if you allow them - can actively collaborate to modify and focus the results of the search engine.
What‘s cool about this?
Sometimes, looking for specific information has that needle in a haystack feeling. Not only can you get 6,000+ results from a simple query, the most relevant data for you can be buried way down the list. Swickis let you slice and dice and customize your search engine query so that you can specify the most relevant sources, then get further refinement of the results once like-minded users start engaging with the results. Every click refines the swicki‘s search strings, creating a responsive, dynamic result that‘s both customized and highly relevant.
How are swickis a personal publishing platform?
The web is full of content and the main way people access it is by searching. Rather than having just one view of the web there can be lots of different focused views of the web - focused search engines or swickis. The best people to create these search eninges are the people who are passionate about a topic - so we can created a tool to allow anyone to publish a search engine. It is a natural extension of creating a web page or blog or pod cast to create a search engine around a topic you and your community care about.
How do I create a swicki?
There‘s a simple three-step process to creating a swicki. You start by customizing your swicki, to decide how it will look on your site (step 1). Next, you train your search by filling out some simple forms (step 2). You can then take a look at the search engine results, edit your choices a bit to focus them further, then publish your swicki onto your site (Step 3). You‘ll need to be a registered user to save and publish your swicki to your site - only an email address and password are required to register.
How does the swicki search work?
When you build a swicki you start by providing information about the topic you wish to focus on. You select relevant keywords, URLs for specific websites, particular domains(like .edu or .uk) and add them into the simple training form. The Eurekster Swicki technology then filters your Search query to deliver highly targeted results. Once you publish and start using your Swicki, the search engine edits itself for consistently better results, constantly learning from the behavior of your swicki‘s users which search results are relevant and which filtering techniques work the best for your topic. As more people use your swicki, the results modify to reflect the interests of the community, giving relevant results no other service offers.
Who can manage my swicki? Is it really collaborative?
Swickis are like wikis in that they are created by one person, but then can be set to allow lots of others to get involved. Currently, swickis automatically and anonymously learn from the search patterns of the community of users. Coming soon, we‘ll have features that will give you controls to allow the community to actively change the search results by explicitly deleting and promoting results. You will be able to control collaboration so one of the following occurs:
Only you can actively and passively influence your swicki (option coming soon) Only you can actively influence the swicki and everyone‘s behavior passively influences your swicki (default setting) More than one person can actively influence the swicki,and everyone‘s behavior passively influences your swicki (option coming soon) Everyone can actively and passively influence your swicki (option coming soon)
What happens if people create a swicki and spam it with poor results?
This is no different to allowing people to create web pages or blogs that are not useful. No one will end up using it if it is not useful. This is the great thing about personal publishing!
What is a buzz cloud and why is it cool?
Buzz clouds are a list of terms that are popular or recently typed into the swicki. Its a bit like overhearing your community‘s conversation at a water cooler - the buzzcloud shows what is going on in their searches. This is useful as it drives more traffic by surfacing what is already at the top of your users‘ minds, and suggesting interesting things to look at.
How will people access these swickis?
Swickis are a natural addition to any website with a targeted set of users, and it is easy to add one to any web site or blog. Creating a targeted view of information on the web is a great additional feature for many web sites.
Do swickis cost money to build?
Nope, they‘re free!
How does Eurekster make money on swickis?
Eurekster‘s revenue model is to add paid search elements to the results pages for swickis.
How do I sign up?
Signing up is fast and easy. Only an email address and password are required to register. Once you register, a validation email is sent to you - once you have that, you‘re good to go.
Make your mark on the world bycreating a swicki now!
Be sure to check out theEurekster Blog for new swicki developments
We are working hard on swickis and really appreciate your feedback, let us know what you like/dislike!
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