Technorati added a new feature today – Technorati Topics which they describe as:
“…our way for you to navigate the conversations on the Web, based on the categories you select. Let’s face it: there are a lot of blog posts out there, and sometimes you just want the latest and greatest within a general topic, without the search. Now you can visit one Technorati Topics page and see just that: live streams of the newest blog posts, all around the topic you want. Topics pages are constantly updating so they’re different every time you visit, and the posts you see scrolling down the page will keep you in-the-know about what’s popping right now.”
Users have the opportunity to view recent posts in the fields of entertainment, technology, politics, sports, business and life. On each page ‘recent’ posts scroll by – you can pause them by hovering your mouse over a post.
I say ‘recent’ because I’m not sure how recent they are. I saw one ProBlogger post go through the business section that I’d written over 24 hours ago so I don’t think it’s a completely up to date thing.
How are blogs selected to appear? Technorati say that it’s based upon a variety of factors including ‘Technorati Authority, frequency of posting, use of relevant tags, links to related subject matter and general topicality’.
My first impression is that it’s a fun looking page but that I’m not likely to spend any more time there as it’s quite random and doesn’t really help me hone in on particular topics. For example as I sat watching the Business channel for a few minutes earlier I saw posts from such a large variety of blogs and topics (including some that I think would have been better in the ‘Technology’ and ‘Life’ sections.
The blog post announcing Topics hints at future developments of ‘Topics’ – so hopefully what we’re currently seeing will be developed to make it more useful. Perhaps a tool where you could specify actual keywords would be more useful – although I find their more traditional search feature to be a quick way to find good information.
