Internet Research Project

My assigned internet research tool is Technorati
Link: http://technorati.com/

Summary
Technorati is a type of search engine that allows its users to search multiple blogs. Technorati is also referred to as a "blogsphere". Users can search the "blogsphere" for material related to their search criteria. Technorati allows users to browse through popular catergories, photos, blogs, and videos. For example when I enter the keywords "Colorado Rockies and Rocktober" the search results yielded blogs about Colorado Rockies and their post season which has been dubbed as "Rocktober". Users are also able to link their blogs to Technorati( as we have all done for this class) by "pinging" the url of their blogs on the Technorati site.

Strengths
Technorati is very user friendly. Its concept is simple. This internet search tool like most search engines is its ability to pull information from many sources. Some blogs are scholarly, some are not depending on the user's purpose of the search either can be beneficial.

Weaknesses
Technorati's search results are quite broad. Users' keywords and phrases must be very specific.

Operators
Technorati responses very well to the use of Boolean operators, as well as as search engine math.

Case Sensitivity
I tested the impact case sensitivity has on search results, from what I found case sensitivity doesn't effect search results very much.

Advanced Search Option
Technorati has an adavanced search option. This option allows users to search for posts that only include specific information designated by the user.

Sorting
Technorati does not initially sort through search results by their relevance. The user has the option to sort through results by keywords through entire post and their authority level to the post.

Display
Technorati displays for functions, search results,links,etc is very user friendly.

Help Function
Technorati allows users to either browse through FAQs or if not found in the FAQs users can search the site for their help topic.

Special Features
As mentioned earlier a special feature I really like about Technorati is the fact users can "ping" their blogs on the Technorati site. Something I found interesting about Technorati is it has a page on Twitter, entitlted Twittorati.

I have found Technorati to be a very successful internet research tool while doing research for this class. I plan to use the newly found tool for future research.