The world of Wordie
Where do word geeks go to get their kicks? You know, those linguists and logophiles who get off on the likes of antediluvian, prelapsarian and numinous? To dictionaries, of course, you say, but aren't dictionaries sooooooo yesterday, Rainy Day asks, provocatively? In this age of Web 2.0 you'll have noticed, no doubt, that dictionaries don't come with comments, trackbacks or other social networking widgets. In other words, dictionaries don't digg it.
This is exactly the space that that Wordie could fill. Its tagline is "Like Flickr, but without the photos", but Wordie is more than what it isn't. This very basic combination of dictionary, thesaurus, and social networking site is a way for people to keep track of words they find interesting. Does it have potential? Definitely. Students taking vocabulary-intensive tests could find it helpful, while those who collect fascinating words can lodge them in Wordie and see how they expand, when Wordie expands its services, that is.
Clearly Wordie could be popular with crossword addicts. As things stand, the crossword puzzle is a child of print and belongs to the individualized activity that comes with newspaper and magazine territory, but it could become a much more social thing if online crossword puzzlers could hook up to exchange words and solutions using something like Wordie. And it doesn't take a wild imagination to see Wordie being incorporated into memory tools for an ageing demographic that will want to remain articulate in the face of Alzheimer's. There'll be no need to be caught scrambling saying "There's a word for that, isn't there?" when Wordie is available on your mobile phone.
John McGrath, the creator of Squirl, a social networking site for collectors, wrote Wordie for his friends using Ruby on Rails, the web framework that's "optimized for programmer happiness". Fun for all the family, in other words.
