This IceRocket, pretty straightforward, huh?
This is Technorati, a little more complex than IceRocket.
The two websites that really caught my eye were Technorati (http://technorati.com/) and IceRocket (http://icerocket.com/). These are two large websites that allow a user to search through blogs. Both have a simple search bar where one can merely type in a word and blogs will pop up containing that word. They also have website URL s provided with the search results. This shows that the goal of these sites is for one to find all the available and recent blogs on a specific subject in one easy search. The URLs provided allow the user to go to that website and see if there is any other blogs by that one blogger. Both sites have the option of sorting the results to show blogs in languages other than English. In addition, both allow the user to track his or her favorite blogs and keep them in one spot. This is in line with the goal of making it easy to navigate the site, instead of trying to find that one post you liked, you can make it a favorite and return to it later. Both contain materials that are not necessarily blogs. Both have videos and images one can search through and look at, bringing a more versatile function to the sites. In addition, both have news feed where one can search for news stories. This can allow a user to still read up on what is going on in the world and then maybe read blog posts about that particular news story! J This again makes these two sites more versatile than just simply being blog search engines; it makes the sites more appealing to me.
One thing that Technorati has is that IceRocket doesn’t is a blog directory. Technorati’s directory is a list of categories, such as art and music, in which one can click on and all the recent posts within that category pop up. This is the site’s goal in making the search for blogs even easier for one who wants to read about a specific subject. One thing that IceRocket has is a list of top tags searched right on the front page, allowing users to access the most popular blogs at the moment. Though Technorati has a similar concept with its “Rising Blog Posts by Attention,” again allowing users to see which posts are hot at the time.
Between the two, Technorati seems to be more useful because it has that extra directory. This would allow me to narrow down the field of what I was looking for greatly. It would also allow me to look at all the posts I can about a certain topic like soccer, if I was passionate about it. Other than that point both seem to be equally useful in what they try to accomplish. They both are useful in making it as easy as possible to find the blogs you are looking for.
daniellesirk said,
January 29, 2009 at 3:37 am
I also think that out of the two sites, Technorati would be more useful. I noticed that the site has an option to sign up as a member, while Icerocket does not. Technorati’s list of rising posts is interesting as well.
Overall I like the look of Icerocket better because it is very clean and straightforward. The images under the Video Buzz and Movies sections add to the site’s appeal. When I first looked at Technorati, it reminded me of some type of popup because of the large ads. Even though the look of the site may not be the best, Technorati’s functionality has won me over.
Maegan Reinhardt said,
January 29, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I would have to agree that Technorati seems slightly easier to use and a little more versatile. I thought it was neat that you can form a favorites list of preferred blogs. I also liked how the most popular blogs and news stories show up next to each other; it is an interesting comparison to what is rising in the news in relation to what is rising in popular interest (when I checked out the site, the rising news story was John Updike’s death; the rising blog was about a video of a Dean being punched by a student in Malaysia).
memenner said,
January 30, 2009 at 3:42 am
Hi Angela,
After reading your post about Technorati and IceRocket I became interested in these websites. The ability to search blog posts using keywords is intriguing because you can find so many different opinions on a variety of different subjects. I found Technorati the easiest to use and searched for some fashion related topics and was amazed at the search results. A search with the words “fashion week” returned search results of runway video and a search for “Angelina Jolie” returned results related to the exact topic I was interested in (Jolie’s SAG awards dress debacle). The “Blog post mentions by day” feature showed that the blogs were buzzing about Jolie around the day of the SAGs. That particular feature shows itself in the form of a chart (a great addition to the site). With IceRocket I used the same search words and got results completely unrelated to what I was searching for. Also, quite discouraging was IceRocket’s interface.
ceh007 said,
February 9, 2009 at 4:28 am
I also found Technorati to be a little easier to use than IceRocket, but I found both websites to be very helpful. You mentioned that Technorati had a blog directory which I found to be very useful and helped make the search process much faster and easier to narrow down. I also found it interesting because it felt more personal. I’m always interested in reading bogs that are viewed frequently and seem popular, which is exactly what the website allows you to do. Overall, I was surprised by the accessibility of both websites and found both of these websites to be much easier to use than many other blogging websites.