#16 Explore Technorati and Learn how Tags work with Blog Posts

So now that you’ve been blogging for awhile, you might be wondering just how big the blogosphere is.  Check out Technorati for the most current statistics on blogging.  Please note that the Technorati company  recently unveiled its new site.  The new site does contain much more advertising.  The company has launched an ad network in order to increase revenues.  Technorati a month ago was a different Technorati than today.  It’s still worth exploring in its present ‘beta’ version.  Don’t try to ‘claim’ your blog through Technorati. Just have a look around.

As you’ve already seen for yourselves, blogging is easy enough that these publishing tools are being taken advantage of by almost every industry, including libraries.

So, how do we optimize our access to and attempt some kind of control over our personal experience of the blogosphere? One way is the above-mentioned Technorati.

TECHNORATI AS A BLOGSOPHERE NEWS TOOL:

Technorati lets you know what’s going on in the blogosphere. When you visit the Front Page you’re looking at a news aggregator that uses blogging behavior on news sites to determine headline news. Technorati calls the system which runs the site the Percolator. It looks at linking and attention patterns of posts, who wrote them, who’s linking to them, the rate of their popularity growth, and many other factors. They use this information to determine what’s hot now and what’s gaining attention.

The site is organized by tabs for topical channels: front page, business, entertainment, lifestyle, politics, sports, and technology. By looking at the different tabs, you can see what blog posts and mainstream media stories are getting the greatest attention from bloggers in each topical area.

You will see the  Blog Directory, a resource page for bloggers. Highlights include the Main tab which shows blog posts about blogging and top blog tags. You’ll find a Top 100 Blog tab.

TECHNORATI AS A SEARCH TOOL:

Technorati is a real-time search engine that can be used to search blog posts. Because blog posts are constantly being updated, Technorati allows you to retrieve posts that have been created moments before.

When you type a term into the search box, you will be rewarded with results from blog posts, blogs, photos, and videos that include the term or have been tagged with the term. Using the Advanced Search option allows you to do a Keyword Search to blog posts which contain your word or phrase, a URL Search to see the blogs that link to it and what they say, or a Tag Search to see posts, photos, and links on that subjects.

TECHNORATI AS A SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOL:

So how does a person get their blog listed as part of the blogosphere and how can you tag your posts with keywords to make them more findable through a Technorati search? In many cases, your blog is already included. If it’s not, and you want to join the party and have your blog officially listed on Technorati, you’ll need to claim your blog yourself. Then, when you tag your blog and your posts, Technorati will pick up these tags when it spiders (or web crawls) your site.

Resources:

• Tutorial: How to Search Technorati to Find Blogs

Exercises:

1. Take a look at Technorati’s front page and look around at all the features.
2. Click through the different tabs to see how the site works and what’s interesting in the blogosphere.
3. Try doing a search for something you’re interested in. Take a look at the results in the different tabs. Try the same search in Google and in Google Blog Search.
4. Look at the Advanced Search options and try the different search options. For the URL search, type in the web address of your blog and see what comes up.
5. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.
6. Add the post URL to the Google Docs Tracking Log.