I have been experimenting with Wink for about two weeks now and I really think it’s useful provided the target of your search meets one of two categories:
1. The content you are trying to locate is something of interest to the current universe of taggers (breaking news, technology topics, poltiics, etc.)
2. The data sources that Wink culls include the services most likely to have what you are looking to find (dgg, de.li.cio.us, furl, etc)
I have found that Wink is hugely useful for searching for breaking news, technology topics, or very geeky web 2.0 technology implementation advice. The supplemental results I get from Google are great and give me some sense for what I am finding on Wink that is unique and different from what I would get from Google. I will probably post a more complete review of Wink later.
The thing I have realized, however, is that I still like Technorati the most for searching for blog content. Why? Well, most of the blogs I read do a really good job of tagging their content (whether they are using explicit Technorati tags or category tags using their blog publishing tool) in such a way that it is easy to retrieve in Technorati. After sleeping on what I heard at tonight’s Search SIG event, I am beginnig to appreciate the importance of tag accuracy (or at least a shared understanding of what a given tag means) over tag breadth or tag volume.
The ultimate utility of a tool like Wink will be in its ability to get access to high quality sources of tagged data. If companies who are collecting lots of tag data (such as Technorati) decide not to share such data, the overall utility of Wink will be limited. It’s not just about getting tag breadth but about getting tag quality.
Technorait tag: searchsig
Technorati tag: wink