Technorati: A Public Utility?
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Written By Reprise Media | July 15, 2005 | Share This
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Once bloggers were on the fringes. Then they were in the foreground, arguing for their right to be taken seriously by the mainstream media. Now they’re playing a different role, that of help-mate and stand-in when traditional media lacks the time and resources to react.
We saw this recently with the London attacks, with both victims and bystanders uploading pictures, video, and eyewitness accounts to blog and news sites.
A Wired article titled Technorati: A New Public Utility takes a look at the relationship between the blog tracking service and the public’s growing dependence on such sites for information.
Here’s an interesting excerpt:
“The number of posts on blogs tracked by Technorati increased 30 percent, from about 850,000 a day in July to 1.2 million on the day of the attacks. Nine of the 10 most popular search requests involved the unfolding tragedy in London… If you think about it, Technorati has become a public utility on a global scale.”
Technorati founder David Sifry is quoted extensively, talking about the advantages of such a system, which is said to index a new post in as little as 7 minutes, much more immediate than the 2-3 weeks Google typically requires:
“With Technorati, you know what is being said, when it is said, and who is saying it. You can track the metamorphosis of an idea, not only who commented on it last but who came up with it first.”
Even still, those familiar with recent negative press about Technorati’s inability to index available posts will see this piece as more damage control than an accurate depiction of where the company is currently positioned.
No doubt Technorati’s got a great product and congrats to anyone who can find a chink in the major engines’ armor and work to exploit it. We all know that Technorati’s well aware of the indexing issue and are working to get it under control. And innovations like their tagging feature are big value adds
Even still, right now the heat is on Technorati to figure out a way to build a differentiated brand , in the face of threats from giants like Yahoo and Google . With the popularity of blogs growing by the day, it’s only a matter of time before one of them launches a blog search engine (Especially after Yahoo! was already caught with their hands in the cookie jar). When either company gets their product to market, they’ll bring millions of users with them, and will likely become the public face of blog search pretty quickly . Without a stronger consumer brand, Technorati will be left in the dust. Building their brand beyond the geek elite is going to be essential.
UPDATE: BusinessWeek chimes in with their take on the coming blog search wars
Topics: Blogging |