Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Worio?
- What is the difference between search and recommendations?
- How does Worio know what my interests are?
- Where do the tags come from?
- Where do the recommendations come from?
- When I thumb-up a web page, Worio asks me to tag it as well. Why is this?
- Can I invite my friends and see what they are recommending?
- Can I tag a page without recommending it? Can I recommend a page without tagging it?
- What is the My Library page?
- Can I recommend and tag as I am looking at a web page? (Is there a browser plugin?)
- Can I synchronize with Delicious?
- What if I prefer the keyword results from another search engine (Yahoo, Google, etc.)?
- Can I use Worio in my browser's search toolbar?
Answers
- What is Worio? Worio is a search engine that helps you discover things you won't typically find using keywords. It does this by understanding what your interests are and giving you recommendations from people who like the things you like. ↑ back to top
- What is the difference between search and recommendations? Search is all about precision. Therefore, keywords are an ideal way to search because they restrict our query to documents that contain particular words associated with the information we are looking for. But the restrictive nature of keywords makes them very poorly suited to discovering new and interesting information. This is where recommendations by people that share our interests can be more helpful. Unlike keyword search, recommendations are more broadly related to the topics that interest you rather than a few specific keywords that might come to mind. ↑ back to top
- How does Worio know what my interests are? Worio understands your interests through the use of tags. Tags are simply words or short phrases that describe the content of a web page. Since they are descriptive in nature, tags are a good way to capture the topics related a web page. By looking at the tags associated with the web pages you are searching, Worio is able to infer the topics that interest you. You can get a good sense of this by seeing the "tag cloud" that Worio automatically generates as you enter your keywords. ↑ back to top
- Where do the tags come from? The tags come from a combination of sources. Some are human-entered and some are generated by Worio's automated tagging system. The automated tagging system allows us to achieve a scale that we simply couldn't with human tagged pages alone. To give you an idea of just how big the set of tagged documents in Worio is, Worio already has five times more tagged documents than the largest social bookmarking site on the web. ↑ back to top
- Where do the recommendations come from? The recommendations come from either Worio's robots or from other people that like the things you like. Beside each search result there is a thumbs-up and thumb-down icon that allows you to indicate the web pages you like and dislike. When you thumb-up a web page you are recommending that page to other people that share your interests and vote the way you do. Because initially we don't have that many users, Worio's robots are designed to act as people in the system. Eventually we hope to see more people recommendations than robot recommendations. But the robots have their place too, because sometimes an artificial person can mirror your interests and make recommendations better than a real one. It will be interesting to see in the long run which is more popular. ↑ back to top
- When I thumb-up a web page, Worio asks me to tag it as well. Why is this? By checking and deleting tags you help Worio understand the way you use language. As a result, Worio is able to give you recommendations that more closely reflect the way you look at information. For example, a web page that is about "history" to one person may be about "political science" to another. By tagging the page one or the other, Worio better understands which type of person you are and therefore can more closely match you to other people (and robots) that share your interests. There is no right or wrong way to tag, just do what you think is best. The more you tag, the better your recommendations will get. And don't be afraid of making a mistake, Worio is designed to gradually learn about you, so one tag here or there won't make a major difference. ↑ back to top
- Can I invite my friends and see what they are recommending? Yes, you can invite your friends to use Worio via e-mail using the invite feature located on your Profile page. Simply go to My Library and select Profile. You can directly see what your friends are recommending by visiting your Friends page. Also, you will see your friends' recommendations in the recommendation pane as you are searching. Though the recommendations you receive are based on what we think you might find most interesting, we realize your friends are a special category, so they get a bit of a bump in your recommendations pane. ↑ back to top
- Can I tag a page without recommending it? Can I recommend a page without tagging it? The system is designed so that recommendations and tagging go hand-in-hand. However, we realize that in some cases you may want to save a page to your library (see My Library below) without actually recommending it to the community. To do so, you can check a tag and then deselect the thumbs-up icon. Similarly, you may want to recommend a page, but at the same time not add it to your library under the heading of a particular tag. To do so, simply check on the thumb-up icon and ignore the tag menu when it opens up. ↑ back to top
- What is the My Library page? The My Library page is simply a library of all the web pages you have thumbed-up and tagged. You can browse the web pages by tag or you can search them using keywords. We hope that making your tagged pages full text searchable will make them more accessible than when you save them to your favourites on your browser, which can often get messy and difficult to navigate with time. ↑ back to top
- Can I recommend and tag as I am looking at a web page? (Is there a browser plugin?) Yes. You can tag while you are looking at the content of a web page by using the Worio bookmarklet. To get the bookmarklet simply go to the My Library page, click on the link entitled Tag with Worio, and follow the instructions. You can also click-through to a web page with the Worio tag header by clicking on the magnifying glass icon that appears in the tag menu. ↑ back to top
- Can I synchronize with Delicious? Yes, simply go to your My Library page, pick the Synchronize with Delicious icon, and follow the instructions. ↑ back to top
- What if I prefer the keyword results from another search engine (Yahoo, Google, etc.)? Simply choose the engine you prefer in the box above the keyword search results. This way, you can enjoy Worio recommendations in conjunction with the keyword results you are most comfortable with. ↑ back to top
- Can I use Worio in my browser's search toolbar?
If you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer version 7, then yes! Simply
look for the highlighted area on the toolbar that is used for adding new
providers:
Using Firefox, it looks like this:
Using Internet Explorer, it looks like this:
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