Twittley – The Next Big Thing in social bookmarking

So when it comes to social bookmarking sites, there is a plethora of worthy front-runners for you to choose from. However, when it comes to social bookmarking sites that harness the nearly infinite power of the wildly popular social networking site “Twitter”… Well, then there’s only ONE:

Twittley is the hottest thing to hit the social bookmarking scene since someone decided it would be a nifty idea to register the domain http://icio.us and add the sub-domain del in front of it in order to create the uber popular del.icio.us that has become a common name around the interwebs! In fact, I would venture to say that Twittley is more than delicious… It’s scrumptious!

Unlike each and every one of it’s predecessors, Twittley’s claim to fame consists of more than just a cool algorithm for rating posts and displaying the most popular on the homepage of the site. No, that just wasn’t good enough for Joel and Goran. They wanted something more, something unique, something that made them stand out amongst the endless sea of social bookmarking sites that have arisen over the past several years. They wanted a sexy algorithm for rating posts AND they wanted the massive reach of the entire Twitter network!

Whoever said “You can’t have your cake and eat it too” obviously had never met Goran and Joel…

Anyhoo, if I were to compare Twittley to any other popular social bookmarking sites, then I guess I would have to say that it’s most similar to Digg. I would also have to point out however, that there are many differences that set them apart and give Twittley the potential to digg deeper and go farther. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Digg a hole for your Facebook

One of the key differences between Digg and Twittley is the fact that Digg seems to be in cahoots with Facebook, a site where you can pinch, poke, tickle, and prod your *friends* and neighbors (a concept which never really appealed to me). Whereas Twittley has sided with Twitter, a site where you post tiny fragments of information (like “teasers”) that you find interesting and want to share with everyone who’s following you (a concept that works quite well in my opinion).

No additional account information to remember

That’s right, with Twittley there’s no need to setup another account on the web because it’s all Twitter based! If you have a Twitter account, you have a Twittley account… You simply need to “login” by allowing Twittley access to your Twitter account! I suppose you could even say that they’re taking a “green” approach by not cluttering up more server space with massive database tables full of account information which would lead to higher server load and more energy consumption… (that might be a little far-fetched though)

Karma algorithm that measures Twitter too!

Not only does each vote get calculated on a “XXX votes” scale, but Twittley has raised the bar by incorporating “karma” into the process. Twittley karma is an algorithm that measures certain aspects of your Twitter usage and activity and combines that with your Twittley usage and activity, and then uses that score to measure how much “weight” or clout you have in regards to each article you submit or vote on. (bravo guys!)

A look at the submission structure – Digg

If you take a look at the image above, you’ll notice that it’s a normal Digg submission. It includes the title of the article and a brief description. It also contains the infamous “Digg voting button” that shows how many diggs that article has received. Then below it there are links for sharing the article, “bury” the article (means you give it a thumbs-down) as well as a link to the user profile of the person who submitted the article.

A look at the submission structure – Twittley

Now, if we were to compare Twittley submissions to Digg submissions, we would notice many similarities. The Twittley submissions also include the title of the article which was submitted as well as a brief description. However, the Twittley submissions do not have the famous “digg” voting button. Instead, they have their own fresh blend of yummyness in the form of a “tweet” button that serves two purposes at once. You click on the “tweet” link on that button and it will automatically count as one vote for that particular article while ALSO updating your status on Twitter with a RT directed at the person who originally submitted the article!

Some may say “wooptie doo”, but that is pretty powerful stuff right there! I mean think about it… If you were to submit an article to Twittley and you had only 20 followers on Twitter, then that would mean that 20 people would instantly see that link to whatever you submitted. Then let’s say that out of those 20 people, 5 of them retweeted it because they too found it interesting. Let’s also say that each of those 5 people had 30 followers. Now you’ve reached 170 people just with one RT! Then we could even venture to say that of those 150 people who just saw the RT, 50 of them RT’d the article as well because they too found it to be of use… Now let’s stay modest and say that each of those 50 people had a total of 50 followers… Now you’ve reached a grand total of 2,670 people! You get the idea now? (and we haven’t even begun to digg deep yet)

What’s also great about this submission format is a new feature that Twittley just recently released where you can “claim your domain”! Rather than simply having a link to the profile of the user who submitted the article, they have introduced a new feature where you upload a text file to your domain and they “verify” that you do in fact own that domain… Once verified, anytime an article is submitted that is from your domain it will automatically include a link at the bottom for users to follow you on Twitter!

Head over heels yet?

Well, I know I am… In fact, I’m so in love with the service that I’m currently working on adding Twittley to SexyBookmarks! Now, those of you who have SexyBookmarks installed won’t necessarily have to install the Twittley WordPress Plugin to be able to let users submit your articles to Twittley without ever leaving your site! However, until more advanced development is done to SexyBookmarks, I would still recommend installing their plugin if you want to be able to display how many times a particular article has been submitted/tweeted, as I have yet to find a solution for incorporating that into the plugin.

That’s all folks!

So now that you know, why don’t you head on over to Twittley and let Joel and Goran know what a great job they’ve done and thank them for inventing such a great and creative service!