WSJ.com - New Search Engines Help Users Find Blogs
[aka "the article for which
I was interviewed"]
First (and this is a serious pet peeve of mine): I am not a web designer. No way, no how. I am the Technical Director at
my company; I make things "go." We have a creative director who makes things pretty; together we make things usable. Although it is true that I am the CSS person (when that is something we are able to implement for clients, don't get me started on why we sometimes cannot), I get an already-designed JPG of what the thing should look like and I go off and CSS-ize it. I am an application developer, database designer/developer/administrator, I make static sites dynamic whenever and however possible, but
I am not a web designer. That's a whole other job description, and it isn't mine. But I
am 31 and I do live in San Jose. But anyway...
Here's
the link to the WSJ article about "blog search engines," in which my quote is something along the lines of "feel the buzz." I
swear I said more relevant things. The woman who wrote the article called me up out of the blue based on
this post in which I said I use Technorati "to find current discussions about timely subjects relevant to web design." It's true, I do. But the context of that post was how I was asked to provide a list of links for
the newsletter at the school where I teach—a design school.
I spent almost two hours on the phone with the article author (over a few calls) giving her the rundown of how I use Technorati vs a traditional search engine, as well as why I use Technorati versus some of the other ones mentioned in the article. The distilling of the conversation was accurate ("You can watch the buzz happen."), but dammit I'm not a designer! Ok, I'll get over that, really.
Niall Kennedy called the article
It is a pretty good overview of the industry and the various search services that will introduce people to the concept of searching for information as it happens" and that's
just what it is. I hope that it gives people a reason to try out the various searching services, and helps people realize the importance of utilizing a pinging mechanism after publishing their posts (
here's one!).
I don't get into the "Technorati sucks!"/"shut up
you suck!" matches because I don't have the time and it's like arguing about politics...except with blog search engines you have more viable alternatives and their actions don't typically result in death. But I digress. Here are some of the things I've written about Technorati:
-
technorati's blog finder
-
molly talked to the Technorati folks and I dig what they had to say
-
let's talk about Technorati tags
Additionally, Technorati is discussed in Chapter 8, "RSS, Indicies, and Folksonomies" of
my upcoming Blogger book.
technorati tags: technorati, blogging services, search
