Sean Kollak

The true story of the explain engine

Soon there will be numerous legends concerning Twick.it – and while Markus and I have no objections to being worshiped – the true story of the explain engine is quite short, simple and a little silly, too.

Colleagues with mutual interests

Markus and I have met in an advertising agency where we both work. As a web developer Markus was dealing a lot with configurators, content management systems and web based applications whereas I as writer, SEO and PR consultant focussed on strategy, conception and text. We quickly discovered our mutual interest in social media such as Twitter and Wikipedia. From the beginning we were fascinated by the possibilities of Web 2.0: Most importantly it allows people to share and spread knowledge – the most important resource of modern times.

Disappointed by Wikipedia, encouraged by Twitter

After trying to participate actively in the German Wikipedia we were quite disappointed by the difficult publishing code and the seemingly unavoidable edit war. Regarding a participatory project the technical barriers as well as the criteria of relevance are far to complex and not up to date. Blogging and Twitter on the other hand are easy, quick and SEO-friendly. Moreover we soon discovered the potential of Twitter as “Wikipedia of news”. We launched a Corporate Blog for our agency, explored WordPress and searched for Twitter applications for the B2B industry.

Birth of Twick.it

The decisive impulse for Twick.it came by chance – in form of an e-mail of another colleague named Frank Schwedes. In this mail Frank asked Markus whether he knew Miki. Miki – mobile Wiki?! Markus didn’t have an idea what it was but it made him start a little buzzword game. What would it sound like to mix Twitter and Wikipedia in one word? What if we combined the best elements of microblogging and encyclopaedia in one application? A social lexicon with entries no longer than a tweet? Twi.ki, Twicker, Twick.it!

You could say that Twick.it started of as a typical German “Schnapsidee”. But we got hooked on the idea and quickly developed the concept of Twick.it with the voting system, semantic algorithms and so on.

Tags: concept, encyclopaedia, microblogging, Twitter, Wikipedia