#9 Technorati (LIS5937: Teaching Information Literacy)

I wanted to choose a Web 2.0 tool to look at for this blog installment, so I decided to briefly look at Technorati. I heard about this at work and was unsure of what it is, so here is a brief description:

Technorati "is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. It looks at tags that authors have placed on their websites. These tags help categorize search results, with recent results coming first. Technorati rates each blog's "authority", the number of unique blogs linking to the blog over the previous six months.

Technorati was founded to help bloggers succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the global online conversation. Founded as the first blog search engine, Technorati has expanded to a full service media company providing services to the blogs and social media sites and connecting them with advertisers who want to join the conversation, and whose online properties introduce blog content to millions of consumers.

The leading blog search engine and directory, Technorati.com indexes more than a million blogs. The site has become the definitive source for the top stories, opinions, photos and videos emerging across news, entertainment, technology, lifestyle, sports, politics and business. Technorati.com tracks not only the authority and influence of blogs, but also the most comprehensive and current index of who and what is most popular in the Blogosphere." (source)

http://technorati.com/

In Information Literacy Instruction:
Technorati, just like any other tool that allows users to sift through information that has been tagged or had metadata applied in some way, is a very useful application. Keeping in mind that there are literally thousands of blogs currently on the Web, Technorati could be very helpful to someone who is looking for something specific. Instead of simply doing a Google search for a blog on a particular subject, Technorati can be used. The instructor librarian can let students know about this and similar tools for finding blogs by librarians on a particular subject, for example. Or, it might help students find a blog with current information and insight into a topic they might be researching. Or it might simply help someone find their new favorite travel blog.