Worio_Beta discover what you've been missing

About Worio

The next generation of web search technology won't be about keyword search. Google already does this well, and any improvement will likely be incremental. Rather, the future lies in providing you what you aren't finding through keywords--sites you currently find through friends, colleagues, blogs, or simply by chance. We call this “discovery” rather than “search” because the goal is to introduce you to new and interesting information rather than to give you just what you searched for.

Worio was founded by students from the University of British Columbia. The project was made possible by support from UBC, Canada's National Research Council, and PRECARN.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What does "Worio" mean?
2. How does Worio know what my interests are?
3. Where do the tags come from?
4. Can I invite my friends and see what they are tagging?
5. What is the Library page?
6. Can I tag as I am looking at a web page? (Is there a browser plugin?)
7. Can I synchronize with Delicious?
8. What if I prefer the keyword results from another search engine (Yahoo, Google, etc.)?
9. Can I use Worio in my browser's search toolbar?

Answers

1. What does "Worio" mean? Worio is an acronym based on "Web of Research", the name we gave to the group of researchers that came together at UBC to develop this project.
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2. How does Worio know what my interests are? Worio learns your interests through your tagging and click-through behaviour. 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. Don't worry, Worio respects your privacy. If you don't want Worio learning from your activity, just click off the personalization button located at the top right of your screen.
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3. 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.
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4. Can I invite my friends and see what they are tagging? Yes, you can invite your friends to use Worio via e-mail using the invite feature located on your Friends tab, Settings page or Library. You can directly see what your friends are tagging by visiting your Friends page. Also, you will see your friends' tags in the discovery pane as you are searching. Though discoveries 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 discoveries pane.
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5. What is the Library page? The Library page is simply a library of all the web pages you have 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.
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6. Can I 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 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.
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7. Can I synchronize with Delicious? Yes, simply go to your Library page, pick the Synchronize with Delicious icon, and follow the instructions.
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8. 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.
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9. 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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