Thing #14 - Technorati & Tagging

Okay, I still find Technorati to be clunky and limited - is it just me?

So I searched for School Library Learning 2.0 in the Blog Directory and got 1,073 results... hmm, not as many relevant hits as I expected. Oops! I forgot the quotation marks (slaps forehead) - trying "School Library Learning 2.0" nets 33 hits. That's more like it. Most on the first page are about California's School Library Learning 2.0 classes, so I head for the second page of hits... no dice- I get message "There are no posts in English with a lot of authority containing "School Library Learning 2.0" ." Oh, well...

Guess what? Keyword search for exact phrase School Library Learning 2.0 also nets 33 hits, without having to use the quotation marks. More current/uptodate blogs, including fave Blue Skunk, but still can't get to anything past the first page of results... what gives?

Of the 10 blogs found using "School Library Learning 2.0" none are from folks I recognize or who have any/much authority, just learners like me who have created blog for similar class... dull as ditchwater. I want my searching time to result in higher knowledge, not MOTS (more of the same). Better get another cup of coffee...

Plunging back into Technorati again, to Advanced, then search TAGS for "School Library Learning 2.0" - resulting in 1 post, uno, a single message, that's all. And it's from the spring term of this class.

Looking at Technorati's 'what's popular in books' on 7/3/08 - mixed bag of obvious self-promotion, business books, and the occasional truly interesting entry... still not much of worth to me, personally or professionally, here.

So, even though I have "claimed" my Katyroo blog, I am not a Technorati convert; I don't expect my future blogs to get a lot of notice/press through this venue or any other, and I don't really care if I'm ever in the top percentages there. As their own marketing manager said in the video - do those top folks even have a real life, if they are posting responses to 20+ blogs daily, day after day??

Nope, I won't be checking in with Technorati any time soon, but I can see the value of being able to tag items on my own computer/learning space, to give them additional labels that might not be explicitly stated in the post/site /e-mail. For instance, an online catalog page with small eagle glass static clings could get tags as - Dad, gifts, Eagle Scouts - that would allow me to search my favorites and docs later on as I was finding last-minute presents (don't worry - my dad isn't online yet, so no surprises spoiled - I mean, if I did find those eagle glass thingies for real).