technorati continued

Ok, I watched the video. But I swear, the technorati I see and the one in the video don't look the same to me. I like the one in the video better. I was reluctant to get ONE MORE ACCOUNT, which would include a user name and password that I would promptly forget, but I thought maybe if I "joined" I'd get that more interesting interface. I didn't. I don't know if I'm just losing it, or what. I don't think I'll be using my technorati account, but I'll give it a try.

So I did the three searches that were also part of our assignment. I searchd "library 2.0" (sorry, learning 2.0 just sounded too boring to me!) in posts, tags, and the directory. The posts and tags results were very similar. They appeared to be blog entries where someone had marked the entry (tagged it) as "library 2.0," like I do on most of my posts. I was more interested in the results of the blog directory search. These were whole blogs that were tagged with library 2.0. I saw a few I already read and checked out a few I'm not very interested in. So it was interesting and I will go back and do some more searching when I have more time...

technorati

Didn't we already do a technorati assignment? I thought so. So I guess we're going in deeper this time. I'm still *waiting* for the technorati tutorial that I'm supposed to watch to download...it's taking for-ever! In the meantime, I checked out the Percolator and Popular features. I wasn't very interested in the Percolator which, "show(s) the blog posts and mainstream media stories getting the greatest attention from other bloggers in a topical area right now. The percolator tends to update these around three times an hour; enough time to track trend and attention data, and short enough to keep pace with the blogosphere." I guess it's kind of interesting, and if I had all the time in the world I'm sure I could spend some of it looking at the Percolator...but alas, I don't. More interesting to me is what's "popular." "Library" went from #14 most popular search to #12 in the past few minutes. Maybe I should keep clicking on library and see how high I can get it. If my clicking on it makes it jump that fast then I wonder about the number of technorati users...Oh, now it's down to #13.

ANYWAY...I got the image above by clicking on library and then saving the "viewings by day" graph to my desktop. I wonder why the recent spike in library searches? Interesting. I'm still not very interested in the results that technorati gives me for library. I guess the library use for this could be checking out what is popular and in the news at any given moment. But it seems that that is easily accomplished by looking at a Google or Yahoo homepage or CNN.com or any of the other news pages.

Ok, I'm going to watch the tutorial now...

RSS continued

Oh, it seems I'm not done with RSS yet!

1. Feedster: the link didn't work (and i really wish the FVRL 2.0 blog would open sites in a NEW window so I don't have to hit back to get to the assignment!) Here's the message I get when I google Feedster: Feedster
Feedster.com. Version 2.1 BETA. Feedster is Changing... We'll be back up soon with exciting news! So, no thoughts on Feedster.

2. Topix: I'm not a fan of the overcrowded home page. It's a bit text-heavy for me. I do like the little interactive graph that comes with the search results, but if I'm looking for news, I'm going to do a Google news search. No question about it.

3. Syndic8.com: Ewwww, I hate the homepage. I didn't realize I had such feelings about graphic design, but these are some unappealing sites! This is definitely uglier than Topix. Reminds me a bit of the old Librarian's Index to the Internet site, though I see they haven't improved much. Hmmm, why on earth would Syndic8 default to chronological order starting with the OLDEST news? That is bizarre. Hmm, it's so ugly I have to move on.

4. Google Blog Search: I've used this many times. It has the familiar Google "brand" logo, familiar search interface, option to create an email alert. Seems solidly Google.

5. Technorati: it definitely has a more eye-pleasing design (to me) than the majority of these sites. The first result that popped up under libraries was from 24 minutes ago and was this: http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2008/librar-ify-your-igoogle-start-page/
A google gadget that customizes your igoogle homepage with a new library related image from Flickr every time you log on. Very cool. I may have to reconsider my igoogle homepage....

The wikis were interesting and COMPLETELY OVERWHELMING! My favorite method of finding blogs of interest remains looking at the links from my favorite blogs. It was interesting to see the lengthy list of Public Library blogs...i'd love to see FVRL on that list!