Those befuddled by Twitter might find new utility in a new application designed to give group functionality to broadcasting in the 140 character or less environment. Twibes is a new site from Adam Loving (@adamloving) designed to help people join or design groups of like minded twits.

I'm particularly excited about this because it will make it easeir for individuals and marketers to reduce the search costs associated exposing a product or service to interested parties. By search, I don't mean SEO or SEM, I mean the term search cost as applied to car sales and retail malls.

You see Honda, Ford and Toyota dealerships all next to each other because each of the similar players within the car category know that if you make finding a car easier, the more likely you'll end up buying. In other words, it helps the category as a whole to put all the pertinant brands in one place. Something about rising tides and ships, ya know?

Now, with Twibes, I think you'll start seeing professional groups sprouting up at first. I know I've started by trying to kick-start my own Twibe, BeSocial. Unfortunately, the service is a bit buggy and I had to tweet my request to start the group twice and I still don't have access to the groups controls yet. I suspect a Firefox issue. Aside from the expected budding of social and professional groups, I see a value in brands banding together around interests as well.

Let's say you're a camera manufacturer. There could be some value in starting a amateur photography Twibe with a few of your competitors. The combined aggregation of valuable content will give your Twibe exponentially more value than if you'd started one yourself. And yes, you'll have to play nice with the othe camera makers, but you'll still have more people dedicating more time to thinking about cameras as a whole. From this, you'll likely see more traffic to your other social outlets, should you actually have them available.

So, check out Twibes and try to see it as a virtual niche shopping mall. So long as you provide relevant, useful information in greater abundance than promotional messages, it should be a success. How else do you see Twibes working in business, leave a comment below.

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