Wink Search Engine Releases New Social Search Tools

Wink™, the social search engine, has released new social search tools that allow people to help one another find the best Web sites. Wink’s new tools give people the means to quickly find what they are looking for on the Web and easily share it with others.

• Spam Fighting – Block spam from search results with the click of a button
• People’s Choice – Vote for Web sites within a search result by giving a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”
• Social Bookmarking – Save and “tag” your favorite Web pages to make them easy to find and share
• Wink Collections – Organize and share the best results of your searches
• Search Networking – Connect with people by subscribing to their collections or adding them as friends to help one another search.

“The goal of Wink is to help people find the best search results refined by the contributions and feedback of the community,” said Michael Tanne, founder and CEO of Wink. “Wink users find what they’re looking for because people doing similar searches have already bookmarked the best sites, blocked the bad ones, or organized related links into Wink Collections – like breadcrumbs for the next person to follow.”

The Web is crowded with sites trying to profit by tricking searchers into clicking on their ads, pushing aside the sites that are intelligent, unique, provocative, fascinating or funny. Wink helps people find the best Web sites by giving the community tools to block spam, and bookmark, rate, and organize the best Web sites, and then applying Wink’s patent-pending PeopleRank™ technology. As the Wink community evolves, its collected information and resources will act as short cuts for everyone seeking similar answers.

SOLUTIONS FOR PEOPLE POWERED SEARCH
Wink provides feedback tools and social features for people to personalize and improve the Web for themselves and others, including:

Search - Wink is a Social Search Engine. You use it just like Google or Yahoo!, but Wink results are selected by people as well as machines. Feedback such as bookmarking, tagging and rating of results with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” constantly refines Wink search engine results. And Wink includes Google search results so the best website can be found even if no one's bookmarked it yet.

Spam – More than ever, search results are filled with Spam – sites that are irrelevant to the search or blatant commercial attempts to get our attention – and the more clever the spammers get, the harder search engines have to work to weed it out. People know spam when they see it, and Wink allows them to get rid of it with a click. This blocks the spam for others and trains the Wink engine to avoid similar spam in the future.

Collections - Wink Collections allow people to organize and share the best web sites on any topic. Collections can be about anything – hilarious videos, your favorite band, the best restaurants in your area, or research on a new gadget. You name it. People create a collection and add links to it, then others seeking similar information can discover the collection in Wink’s search results, and even subscribe to it if they want to stay informed. Others can add links to the Collection – a great way for people to share what they know and improve search.

Social Bookmarking – Using Wink’s social bookmarking tool, people can save favorite web pages and add “tags,” – terms that describe the site. People can bookmark any page they visit by placing an "Add to Wink" button in their browser, or bookmark right from the Wink search result by clicking on a star. Users add tags and comments to help them remember the site later. It will also help others find the site. Users of the popular del.icio.us bookmark service can sync their bookmarks between Wink and del.icio.us (wink.com/tools).

Friends - As a social search engine, Wink’s goal is to help people find and share great information. Wink lets people connect with friends, and others they meet on-line. If you find someone who is an expert in a topic you're passionate about or who has created an interesting collection - add them as a friend. Wink users can check out who finds the best links and meet new people who have the same interests.

Wink (wink.com) is a venture-backed start-up in Silicon Valley with a Social Search Engine that uses people's contributions and feedback - like bookmarking, rating, and organizing links - to make it easier to find and share current, relevant Web sites. Wink’s patent-pending PeopleRank™ technology analyzes people’s input to continually refine the search results. Wink’s team of experienced search engineers come from Yahoo, Inktomi, Excite, and Google.