Testing Testy Technorati

For step #14, I am looking at Technorati, a blog search website I reviewed in my post More RSS. For starters, I have created a Technorati Profile. So far, whatever I search, even starting to search this blog's URL specifically has resulted in, well, no results.

There are three ways to get Technorati to recognize a blog, so I hope I did it right. I followed the instructions, so it is a wait and see. There was probably another step (there is always another step) and I missed it.

I like Technorati, but I would like to see more descriptions as to where I am going. For instance, on the Popular page, one of the Top Blogs is listed as ?? ??? ??BLOG with 14,417 blogs linking to it--probably to find out what the heck it is.

The Discovery page isn't much better. There are too few topics here. We have five main areas with tabs for about five more in each. But, I don't see tabs for pets, cars, hockey, etc. and no place to add these.

What I do like is the results page. Here we have sections for finding results by blog, photos, video, podcast, music, and/or people.

What I don't like are tags. As I ranted--I mean, explained, in my previous post, there are too many variables with tags and Technorati proved this to be true. Using my default search phrase, Italian Greyhound, I got 13 results. However, if I searched the plural form, I get no results and it is not as if there are no tags for Italian Greyhounds. The photo search goes from 2,408 for the singular form to 194 for the plural. If the two tags were amalgamated, then I would get the same number of search results.

Another nice site hampered by these awful tags.

More RSS

For step 9 in the 23 Things, we are to review four RSS search tool websites. For testing the searches, I will use my favorite search phrase "Italian Greyhound".

Technorati This is a nice site with Popular, Top Searches, and Top Tags visible on the homepage. There is a simple search and an advanced search. Interestingly, I got no results when I search Italian Greyhound as a phrase, but I still found plenty of IG information if I used the all words option.

On the results page, I really like the "In [24 hours; 2 days, 3 days, etc.]" along the left side. There is a graph showing Mentions by Day which is pretty neat. Furthermore, there are a number of options where you can limit your search. Too bad I found the site buggy; I got an error message every third search.

The one thing I did not like is the Featured Bloggers. All you have are thumbnail images and you have to either roll the mouse over each image to get a name or click on it to get more information. I think they need to rethink this one.


Feedster Not as colorful as Technorati and the search options are limited, but at least I would remember the name better than Technorati.

Feedster offers Content Channels, Popular Searches, Business Solutions, Feed of the Day (with a thumbnail screenshot), and Feedster in the News.

The worst thing is the search options or lack thereof. Plus, Feedster does not show the link for each feed. I like to know where I am getting my information. Of course, neither did Technorati, so maybe that just isn't part of RSS feed searches.


Topix appears like an online newspaper with Top Story, Latest News, and Local News. I especially like the Recent Comments where you can find some interesting stuff.

The Advance Search doesn't offer as many options as Technorati, but it is designed more for searching news that subjects.

At the bottom of the homepage are additional news separated by topic like sections in a print newspaper. Overall, a nice site for news and comments.


Syndic8 I left this one for last. What a mess. This site is designed as a "community-driven effort" (think Wikipedia).

There's a lot going on on this page, but a lot of garbage too. Why should I care about random sites and random headlines? Moreover, why should I care about the 10 Newest Users? Am I supposed to know these people?

The only redeeming quality of this site is the search results, but not the search itself (I'll get to that). I like that I can see the site names, when it was created, "feed changed" (I'm assuming that means last updated), and language. Plus, I can sort by each of these columns.

There is a Recent Search list, but it seems to have recent searches for everyone since it shows searches like Car Insurance. I didn't search for any car insurance. Does this mean I can get a discount on my car insurance if I have an Italian Greyhound?

Although there are a number of options for various sources (listed along the top of the page in no particular order), Syndic8 offers no advanced search and using quotations for a phrase search resulted in no hits.

In conclusion, I would stay away from this site.

So, this is a blog

Okay, I have read Blogs and I have contributed to forums and listservs, but I have never written a blog before. I feel as if I need to start each entry with "Dear Diary, today I . . ." and then write something witty.

You know, this can be quite intimidating; sitting here looking at a blank screen trying to figure out what to write. Do I make commentary? Is it work related? Who is going to read it? Will they care? Will I care?

Well, this is a start. Let's see how far I can get with this Blog-thing.