Comments on: Did David Sifry Pop the Web 2.0 Bubble?

By: Technorati Topics: Turn Toward Techmeme Clone Fails Basic Usability Test ¦ Online Media Cultist

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:53:35 +0000

[...] Blog search engine and aspiring social media portal Technorati has had some well publicized troubles of late, including the resignation of CEO David Sifry and a round of layoffs. [...]

By: Eric Berlin

Eric Berlin — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:17:21 +0000

Alessandro – A lot of bloggers use it as a way to see who is linking to them/talking about them, and others use it as a blog search engine. There’s no end to tapping into blogger’s self-interest, it seems!

Kob – Very interesting thoughts. Yeah, I hear you regarding “authority” — perhaps some sort of “sub-authority” is in order to meet the issue I believe you’re talking about, which is relative influence/authority within a field or sub-field. So while techcrunch may have a lot of authority overall, ProBlogger likely deserves more “sub-authority” in its specific area of expertise.

By: Eric Berlin

Eric Berlin — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:10:49 +0000

Sprague — Not sure if Technorati is dead and buried just yet, but I agree they have their work cut out for them in terms of providing a unique search experience. Personally, I find value in their blog rankings — not sure how much of a business lies therein, however. I also think that there’s no clear blog search leader, which leaves the space fairly wide open. I wouldn’t put it past google to lock it down one of these years, however!

By: kob

kob — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 03:46:04 +0000

Eric,
I wouldn’t read too much Web 2.0 into whatever issues Technorati is facing. As a local aggregator who has who has relied heavily on Technorati for discovering new blogs, I’ll make a few observations:

- Technorati was — by far — the most comprehensive search engine. But Google’s blog search engine has really improved, and while I don’t feel it’s still as comprehensive as Technorati, it’s pretty darn close.

– Technorati’s “authority” index bugs the heck out of people. If 50 people link to your blog, technorati’s “authority” may show less than that amount because it tends to place its weight on linking over the last six months. This system favors the big sites that produce posts that are often cited by other bloggers. For the typical toil-in-the-weeds local blogger who develops his/her own list of regular linked readers, the technorati measure is not a measure of their “authority.” Moreover, the use of the word “authority” speaks of institutional aggrogance. It’s very, very insulting because it implies that a mathematical metric can determine the “authority” of the blogger — and that is absolutely false. They are taking their theory of measurement, applying it, calling it “authority” and if you don’t like, tough. Smart move. I’ve tuned it out as a reference. They can fix this easy by offering a series of metrics that meet all the blog models.

3. Technorati should be doing more to improve its ability to search local and niche blogs. Technorati owned this space and now its let Google catch up.

4. Confusing interface. What is Technocrati trying to be? A portal or search engine? I can’t tell anymore.

By: alessandro

alessandro — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 02:21:36 +0000

I never did quite grasp technorati. Guess it’s no loss to me – even though I’m part of it.

By: Sprague

Sprague — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 23:04:22 +0000

No great loss. Technorati’s technology has been suffering lately (lagging in catching posts and failing to catch all links to a site, which pretty much shot their “relevance” algorithm) and its utility is being eclipsed by mainstream search engines (how exactly is a blog different from any dynamic site that can be crawled by a robot and measured by linkback popularity?)

Natural selection will out.

By: Technorati Update: Time To Freak Out? » Webomatica - tech, movies, music blog

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:50:30 +0000

[...] Eric Berlin wonders if Technorati is a canary in the coal mine. [...]