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How-to: Break into the Technorati 100

Sure, Technorati’s relevance has waned as the service has devolved over the years to the current mishmash of conflicting agendas that comprises its homepage today. But - leaderboards are still cool. And Skelliewag is a great blogger that I wanted to introduce you too if you’re not reading him/her (?) already (skelliewag was new to me).

So, here’s skellie’s route to Technorati fame, which given that it centers around generating links from blogs back to you, really applies to any exercise in increasing your traffic. In a nutshell: Write lots (#3) of valuable posts (#4) about cool things (#2) that add meaning (#5) to the original content and inspire passion (#7) and encourage del.icio.us postings (#1) in your readers, and hope that you’re pithy remarks become an internet catchphrase (#6).

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TechWatching Blog Search is coming along…

Want to know what the tech blogosphere has said about Windows Vista in the past week? Click here to have a look.

TechWatching now surfaces the indexes that it uses for meme-tracking as a searchable database. Some compartive analysis:

1. Its very vertical. This searches only those blogs that TechWatching indexes - about 225 as of this writing. This number will grow over time of course, but it will never have the breadth of say Google Blog Search. On the upside, results will be spam free and from “trusted” sources vetted by the entire tech blogosphere.
2. Its not deep yet. TechWatching isn’t crawling sites - just following feeds. So the content is very chronologically shallow so far, going back only 7 days (that’s when the current database was rolled out). Of course, it gets deeper second by second, but if you’re looking for older stuff, its back to Google or Technorati.
3. It indexes titles only. I’m trading efficiency for depth here, based on the assumption that if a blogger is writing about something for a feed-reading audience, they’re going to put their important topical keywords in their post titles. Undoubtedly some posts will fall through the cracks because of this - but FWIW, if a blogger is constantly obfuscating their posts with titles that bear at-best tangential relation to their post content, well… that’s annoying for feed scanning people too, not just robots.

I also built in a time-boxer today, so you can see posts from the last few hours, today, etc. Of course, the periods longer that two weeks don’t mean a lot as the index doesn’t go back that far yet….

Anyway - enjoy. I built this engine on top of TechWatching because I find Technorati frustrating and inconsistent, and lord only knows, the world needs an alternative to Google. Also, I believe in the power of focused verticals to deliver superior results.

More to follow - stay tuned.

blog search, google, technorati techwatching

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I’m not so sure about Spock: The next Riya?

TechCrunch’s Nick G. sums things up well:

Spock is certainly fun, and encourages user interaction by adding and voting on descriptive tags. It could easily become a definitive source of information about people. It will, however, likely take a massive number of page views to properly monetize the product - people searches do not generate the kind of advertising rates that ecommerce and other searches command. [from TechCrunch]

That’s it in a nutshell. Its fun, in a curiosity sort of way. In a click-around-for-a-minute-and-see-if-I’m-in-there sort of way. In a “not likely to return” sort of way. Spock may have all sorts of interesting semantic technology under the hood, but to me, its the next Riya: a cool technology flailing around for a need to serve. As Riya demonstrated, cool tech doesn’t even guarantee you an IP acquisition if it doesn’t serve some fundamental need.

And there’s the problem. It seems to me that people search is a fundamentally niche market. While 30% of search volume may be people related, how much of that volume is monetizeable, and does Spock add enough marginal value to grab any of it? People search has a number of unique characteristics that make it less suited to a vertical, than say, gadget searching - consider some of the basic use cases:

1. Vanity Search: Spock may provide an adequate solution for “vanity searches” (searching for yourself), but (a) how much marginal benefit does it provide over Google, and (b) how monetizeable is it?
2. Mainstream Culture Searches: What’s new with Britney? People apparently care. But Spock isn’t a news portal, or a gossip blog like TMZ or whathaveyou. Anyone searching for “Britney” likely knows here bio inside out already; I don’t see Spock having much marginal benefit here.
3. Finding People for Social or Business Networking: LinkedIn & Facebook & MySpace, etc: Is Spock aiming to compete with these juggernauts? Actually, judging from the descriptions of social networking features on Spock, it seems that they are. To me, this seems like a tacit admission that the core proposition of people search lacks significant marginal value over and above Google or Yahoo; “now with social networking” often seems like a desperation garnish added to jazz up a concept that lacks merit in and of itself.

So - from my lofty perch, I look down and see Spock as floundering out of the gate. A “definitive source of information about people” - is this something that folks are clamoring for? A way to get in touch with people - certainly (see: Facebook). A way to find people’s websites - Ok (see: Google). A way to find news about people - fine (see: blog search). Is there any value to be gained by aggregating these together into a definitive source? To me: doubtful. The tacked on social networking features & questionable widgets (I can write my own bio, thanks) reinforce this feeling.

A cool technology demo != a sustainable business.

google, people search, spock technorati

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Engagement - 4 tips for Startups & Established players: using digg, del.icio.us, technorati, and google to build your community

Companies on the web (speaking in terms of 2.0 startups here) can be sorted into two categories - those that actively engage their communities, and those that don’t.

I base that on my first 2 month’s experience blogging here. Some reviews have been actively commented on over time by the company reviewed - take a look at the Collanos post, for instance: the Collanos folks are all over it with opinions, other ways of looking at things, feature updates, and so on. Same thing with Teqlo - lots of conversation flowed from that post.

Most reviews, however, haven’t gotten any attention from the firm in question. SuTree? TxtVox? Meshly? Hellooooo…?

There’s a number of ways that engaging Bloggers with comments or trackbacks is valuable for web companies (or any, for that matter) new or old:

1. Establishing a relationship often turns critics into advocates.
2. Share your side of the story: supplement, complement, and correct.
3. Gather feedback.
4. Gain eyeballs - posts with good discussion get more readers.
5. Build brand equity - your company looks better if its approachable and engaged.

Anyway, the benefits of Naked Conversations have been endlessly hashed out elsewhere.

So - how to go about realizing these benefits? Doing so does not have to be arduous or time consuming, nor do you necessarily need to rush out and hire a community manager. There’s 4 simple, fast ways to identify, track, and stay on top of conversations about your company:

1. Technorati: Subscribe to your tag. Enter this in your browser: http://technorati.com/posts/tag/YourCompanyNameHere. For example, here’s the Collanos page. Then, subscribe to it (there’s a nice RSS link right there). Now, you’re instantly updated in your feed reader whenever someone out there properly tags a post about you. For thoroughness, be sure to subscribe to feeds for all variations and misspellings of your name.
2. Google: bookmark searches for all common variations of your company’s name, as well as things like “YouCompanyName Review.” Try searching for “SuTree Review,” for instance. My SuTree post is on the first page.
3. Did you know you can subscribe to Digg search results? Well, you can. And you should. Digg weilds undue influence - you should be commenting on posts about your company, and ready to throw out a “Welcome Diggers!” message onto your site if a post goes front page (you should have a page ready to go, designed to convert notoriously shallow-browsing digg readers into members). Here’s the digg search for SuTree - the subscribe icon is innocuous, but there.
4. Del.icio.us: You should be following what’s getting bookmarked about you - your company, reviews, and so on. Read the user notes - those capsule summaries provide a good window into how your brand is perceived online. Finding yourself on del.icio.us can be cumbersome, as del.icio.us uses their own id strings for URLs. Here’s SuTree for example: http://del.icio.us/url/76ff772c19d0c546a3b70fc4e24b6080. Click that link though, and you’ll see a URL search box: enter yours there. And, if you scan all the way to the bottom, there’s an RSS feed for it too.

So there you go: adding RSS feeds to your reader from Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Digg, and bookmarking a few Google searches will keep you generally up to speed with what’s being said about your company. Following those feeds is a matter of minutes in your feed reader. Now, the onus is on you to act on that: get out there and comment - engage your community and enjoy the rewards.

EDIT: Guy Kawasaki posted an article today about DIY PR by Glen Kelmann. The 4 tips above would be good tools for someone going the DIY and engaging customers and stakeholders directly.

blogging, community, delicious, digg, feeds, google, howto, reputation, rss, startups, technorati tips

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Technorati Authority Tweaks

Huh. My Technorati Authority jumped from 61 to 76 this afternoon with little change in link or reference volume. Are they tweaking their algorothim? Anyone else getting jumps?

authority technorati

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