Huh?
By Maureen Sharib
Whatâs a swicki?
A swicki is a 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.
What is a buzz cloud and why is it cool?
Buzzclouds are a list of search tags 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 do I decide what search tags appear in my buzzcloud?
You can manage your buzzcloud via this page. From here there are three columns of search tags.
The first column is a list of search tags that users have typed into your swicki search box and you can choose to add or block these terms. This is an automatically generated list of suggested search tags you may wish to add to your buzzcloud. The number next to the search tag shows how many times people have searched for it from your swicki.
The second column is a list of search tags that are blocked from appearing in your buzzcloud. Search tags listed here will never appear in your buzzcloud and never be suggested to be added to the buzzcloud
The third column is the list of search tags that can appear in your buzzcloud. If the number of tags is larger than the number of tags that appear then a random selection from this list will be taken. If you have a long list then each time you refresh your buzzcloud you will notice different tags appear.
Read more FAQs on swickis and buzz clouds here.
Go here to add my code to your site! If youâre a blogger or webmaster you can post my swicki searchbox and buzzcloud on your site. This will grow your swicki community and increase the learning effect. You retain all moderator rights and control of the buzzcloud that all the sites see.
Whatâs your BUZZCLOUD look like? Here's mine:
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Maureen Sharib is a seasoned telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names sourcing firm TechTrak.com and Maureen telephone-names sources daily as well as teaches telephone-names sourcing in her online telephone names sourcing course "The Magic In The Method." She can be reached by email at Maureen at techtrak.com or by phone at (513) 899-9628. Maureen will come on-site to your company to teach telephone names sourcing to your sourcers.
