Technorati on the Authority Changes

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Technorati is explaining the recent news in an email, where they not only pimp the State of the Blogosphere Survey (which should take around 15 minutes to complete), but also mentions the Technorati Writer concept.

There’s also this explanation to the changes to the Technorati Authority for blogs:

Due to the vast number of blogging platforms and custom installations out there (and some bloggers who felt we were using too much of their data), we now rely more heavily on RSS and Atom feeds than in the past. Bloggers can control how much of their content they wish to syndicate via feeds. Many blogs only provide partial feeds, we are not always able to get link data from them. Thus, links from these blogs may no longer contribute to your authority.

In other words, a full content feed is a good idea if you want to make sure your links count.

Technorati Looking for an Identity

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technorati.jpgFormer blogosphere darling and Search Engine with capital S, Technorati, is looking to hire bloggers to feature original content on their site. In the midst of Twittorati and ad networks, this is a somewhat surprising move, since it means that the main Technorati site is moving even further from its search engine past.

I’d like to say that’s a shame but can’t really commit to that statement. The Technorati we once knew and actually used doesn’t fill a need anymore.

Obviously this is because of other search players in the blogosphere. It is tough enough to battle with Google, but they are joined by the likes of Twingly. All the while, Technorati haven’t been able to keep up with real time or anything, they should’ve been at the front. They must have other plans. [Read more…]

Technorati Launches Twittorati

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Technorati wants to be in the middle of the traditional blogosphere, and Twitter. Hence they launch Twittorati, a Muck Rack powered Twitter mash of whatever the Technorati Top 100 blog’s bloggers twitter about.

We say this is where the Blogosphere meets the Twittersphere, but what does that mean? Twittorati shows what top bloggers are tweeting about, and how these trends compare to Blogosphere trends. You’ll be able to filter tweets by topic, see the most tweeted blog posts, and compare leading Blogosphere and twitter trends.

The site lets you “follow the highest authority bloggers”. More is to come, but for now, check it out. If nothing else, it helps cement the Technorati Top 100 blogs even further.

SyFy: It’s No Wii Is It?

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I don’t really care what the SciFi Channel calls itself, but rebranding itself as SyFy to not alienate people is just plain silly. Most tweeters seem to agree, judging from the search result for the #SyFy hashtag, and here’s the Technorati tag. Science fiction blog io9 offers 25 other names for rebranding the channel, and webcomic Real Life makes a pretty good observation. Penny Arcade is slightly less politically correct, as usual.

I don’t know, maybe they hoped to do a Wii and gain something from all the bad jokes. After all, all the pee jokes proved successful for Nintendo (the Wii prints money), so maybe that’s it? Either way, gotta love the blogosphere for making the most of this thing.

Most Linked In The Blogosphere According To Technorati

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Technorati have been analyzing what we’re linking to, and not surprisingly it is mostly blogs. 61% of the links in fact, according to the State of the Blogosphere study. 46% is, however, “non-blog web content” to use the words of Jen McLean. That’s interesting of course, and Technorati are kind enough to supply us with the most linked list over the last 30 days. [Read more…]

Is Blog Searching Dead?

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When I first started blogging over three years ago, blog search engines including Technorati and Google Blog Search were my favorite tools for keeping on top of who was talking about my topics, who was linking to my site and finding posts to comment on and offer help to.

However, over the years, the usefulness of these services have dwindled to nearly nothing. Where once nearly every great tip or connection came from either a Technorati Watchlist or a Google RSS feed, now I seem to get the best results from Twitter and more targeted searches.

The days of punching in a few keywords into Technorati and getting a stream of useful results is over. What follows now is a kludge of spam, off-topic posts and other noise that has to be sifted through to find the few grains of great content.

If blog searching isn’t dead, it certainly is very ill and it is time that something is done to fix it. [Read more…]

WordPress Rules the Technorati Top 100, TypePad Too

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Pingdom took a look at the Technorati Top 100 blogs to see what blogging platform was the most widely used one. I can’t say I’m the least surprised to see that WordPress finished at the top. Looking at the self-hosted blogs, 27 (ie 27%) run WordPress, 12 rolls on Movable Type, 8 are custom made, and 4 use Drupal. Looking at hosted blog platform, TypePad finishes at the top with 16 blogs, Blogsmith rolls 14, WordPress.com only has 5, and 3 use Blogger. Worth noting is that Gawker Media blogs has their own platform, and it isn’t listed, whereas AOL Weblogs Inc, use Blogsmith.

For even more number crunching and graphs, check out the excellent run-through at the Royal Pingdom blog, including a full list.

Twingly Launches BlogRank, Says it is Trust

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TwinglySwedish spam free blog search engine Twingly has announced the Twingly Blog Rank and Top 100. The former is a ranking system similar to Google PageRank, but for blogs, while the latter is a top 100 list for blogs, similar to Technorati. Or is it? Anton Johansson said this to me in an email this morning.

What’s the purpose of the Twingly BlogRank? Don’t you think that Technorati does a good enough job?

The purpose of Twingly BlogRank is to get a more valuable way to see if a blog has influence and importance. In many ways this is like Googles PageRank but only for blogs. Technorati is really good on what they’re doing but they have no international focus. If you’re from Sweden you want to be the no 1 in Sweden with BlogRank 10, not no 2612 international. BlogRank is based on language so the largest Swedish blogs get BlogRank 10 and the largest English blogs BlogRank 10, too. It’s quite easy to see at Twingly Top 100.

Technorati Authority is just a number that don’t say so much. Twingly BlogRank is trust.

[Read more…]

Technorati Top 100 Blogs are Dial-Up Unfriendly

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Pingdom, the uptime service, recently published a report analyzing the load size of the Technorati Top 100 blogs. While the report isn’t focusing on individual blogs, it is still an interesting read.

The one thing that stands out is the massive size of the front pages of these blogs. The average size is a whopping 934 kB, and 35% had a front page larger than 1 MB. This effectively locks out dial-up users.

Why would you decide to do that? [Read more…]

Huffington Posts New Technorati Top 100 Leader

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Arianna Huffington’s The Huffington Post is the new #1 spot on Technorati Top 100 blogs list, overtaking previous frontrunner Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch. I’m not sure if this really means anything, but TechCrunch have been controlling the Technorati Top 100 list for some time now. Other than that, here’s the top 10:

  1. The Huffington Post
  2. TechCrunch
  3. Gizmodo
  4. Engadget
  5. Boing Boing
  6. Lifehacker
  7. Ars Technica
  8. Official Google Blog
  9. Daily Kos
  10. TravelPod

Do you care about the Technorati Top 100 list at all?