Twine Raises Millions More for Semantic Web
Radar Networks, the home of the eagerly awaited semantic web app Twine, will announce on Monday that it's closed another round of funding, including a major investment from the fund lead by Ross Levinsohn, the man who bought MySpace while at Fox.
Super-sleuth Dan Primack over at PE Hub dug up the early news about the investment and Chris Morrison at Venture Beat says Velocity Interactive Group and a number of other investors are putting in money in the $15 to $20 million range.
It's not the biggest semantic web investment of late by a long shot, and the company had raised $4m already, but this new round is notable because so many people are salivating over Twine. The service is most simply described as a tool for "knowledge networking." We wrote about Twine when it was announced in October, Richard MacManus asked if Twine might be the first mainstream semantic web app to hit the web. See the video below for a more in-depth introduction.
For a look at the breadth of Twine coverage across blogs specializing in semantic web technology, check out this search across our Semantic Web custom search engine, part of the RWW Toolkit for the Top Issues of 2008. See also Bernard Lunn's post here this week titled, 11 Things to Know About the Semantic Web.
The following is Robert Scoble's 10 minute highlight tape of an interview he did with Twine founder Nova Spivack in December.
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thanksss
Posted by: Güzeş Sözler | February 22, 2008 12:27 PM
Freebase, Twine. Good money going the semweb way. Now if only I'd get my Twine invite :)
Posted by: mndoci.myopenid.com
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February 22, 2008 2:47 PM
$$$ well deserved ... and well invested (IMO).
As the most active participant in Twine's private beta (you'll see this when you receive your invitation), I can attest to the legitimacy of Twine's aura, both the mystique (imagined) and technological framework (actual).
Semweb (the Semantic Web) is different. Web 3.0 is different. And Twine is different.
On the surface, Twine may look a lot like a Web 2.0 application, something akin to a Facebook, a Yahoo! Group, maybe a JotSpot, perhaps del.icio.us. In fact, it's the best of all of the above. And, quite frankly, Twine's familiarity is good news: A new Twinerian has a short learning curve. (Take learning how to fly in Second Life as a counterexample.)
However, Twine is really so much more than a social networking site, social bookmarking site, online discussion group, or wiki. At it's core, Twine is about the organizing and sharing of knowledge based upon common interests. But discovery is what makes Twine truly unique. And in addition to discovery in a broad sense, I personally view Twine's matchmaking features as its key advantage.
With Twine, a Twinerian can find business partners, potential employers or employees, or life partners. And it's all quite simple, something I've dubbed "one-click networking and discovery." Bottom line: Click on a bookmarklet and both people and content matches will follow. Enter Web 3.0.
Recent New York Times column on Twine:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/business/03novel.html
My three AlwaysOn Network columns on Twine (listed in chronological order):
http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/20803
http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/22937
http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/23747
(AO column links: doiop.com/Twine, doiop.com/Crunchies and doiop.com/Enterprise3.0)
Posted by: David Scott Lewis (Zytech Solar, a Going Green 100 Winner) | February 23, 2008 12:42 AM
Marshall
confirmation of the news came overnight - an additional $13million. See, for example, my post on the detail at http://blogs.zdnet.com/semantic-web/?p=103 .
Posted by: Paul Miller | February 25, 2008 3:48 AM