Folkd.com: A New AJAX-Powered Social Web Search

JavaScriptSearch
Tuesday, August 22, 2006; 03:57 AM

folkd.com is a new social web service based on audio records, bookmarks, news and notes. A browser plug-in for Mozilla Firefox and the Microsoft Internet Explorer allows the user to save content, record audio comments, rank, recommend web pages, and look into topic related content of other community members - all that during the actual surfing process.

The creators of folkd.com said it is the consequential advancement of popular social software and combines the best features of well known Web 2.0 services like Digg.com, del.icio.us, odeo and stumbleupon. The intuitive Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) Interface Design allows the users to manage their favorite web sites, to report on current news, create audio comments and write notes, an equivalent to the classic blog entries. Every content can be tagged with keywords, be "folkd" (ranked) and recommended. Furthermore it is possible to invite friends, to track their recommendations and create open or closed user groups for certain topics.

folkd.com is internationally oriented right from the start. The language filter allows users to hide or show content of specific languages. The interface will soon be available in four languages: English, German, French an Spanish. A special highlight is the audio comment feature. The multi-purpose use of this feature allows members to upload existing audio comments and link them to the chosen web site. With a microphone at hand folkd.com also offers the possibility to record and upload own audio recordings directly within the web browser. This allows users for example to distribute own podcasts, to make live comments on interesting articles, news, blog entries or certain topics.

The folkd.com users decide which content becomes popular or not. All members receive a certain "reputation-rank" from the system depending on their activity within the community. Similar to the Google Pagerank this value is related to actual ranking and as result to the saved content. In contrast to similar social web services the search result page does not only depend on how many users rank or save certain content. The users reputation rank and the fact that content is really used by others community members are an important factor for an item's position within the search result.

The download of the browser plug-in and use of folkd.com is free of charge.  folkd.com is a product of the London based Huber New Media Publications Ltd. Development and management are located in Karlsruhe, Germany.