Technorati beta

Well, I finally got around to visiting the Technorati beta site and it is quite a change from the original site.  I don’t use Technorati all that much unless I am looking for some info in the blogosphere about something not covered by the blogs I tend to frequent.  That being said I may start to use it a bit more.  Talk about loads of content!  Those guys have a great thing going and the new site is quite a bit friendlier than the old one and with one or two new features.

Here is the post by Dave Sifry from when the beta site was launched last week:

I’m pleased to announce the launch of the public beta
of this major redesign of the Technorati service. We’ve been listening
to your feedback, and we hope we’ve reflected that in this release.
This is a beta. So, if you have feedback, please tell
us because we want to know what is of value to you, our users. We’ve
made a big step with this release. Having said that, we also know we
have more improvements to make and we’re working hard to implement
them. Here are some of the highlights of this beta release:

• We’ve
  improved the user experience, making Technorati accessible to more
  people and, specifically, people who are new to blogging. We’ve tried
  to make it very simple to understand what Technorati is all about, and
  make it easy to understand how we’re different from other search
  engines.
• We’ve learned from the incredible success of tags, and brought some
  of the those same features into search, as well as expanding tag
  functionality. Now, if your search matches a tag, we bring in photos
  and links from flickr, furl, delicious, and now buzznet as well.
• We now have more powerful advanced search features. You can now click the "Options" link beside any search box for power searching options.
• We’ve added more personalization.  Sign in, and you’ll see your current set of watchlists, claimed blogs, and profile info, right on the homepage, giving you quick access to the stuff you want as quickly as possible.
• New Watchlist capabilities
  have been added. For example, you no longer need a RSS reader to watch
  your favorite searches. Now you can view all of your favorite searches
  on one page. Of
  course, you can still get your watchlists via RSS, and it is even
  easier to create new watchlists. You can also get RSS feeds for tagged posts, just check the bottom of each page of tag results!

As I mentioned, this beta is now public and available on our Web site at http://beta.technorati.com. We encourage you to check it out and, if you’d like, blog about it.

And please keep sending us your feedback!  It is invaluable, and has helped us immeasurably to improve the service.  There’s still a long
way to go, and we have lots more in store for the next few months – and
your comments are the first thing we all check every morning. Please
keep us on our toes, and keep telling us how we can continue to improve
and be of service to you.