I happened to notice it last night while I was sifting through all the stuff I had ignored while on vacation this last weekend, but appearantly it became announced news this morning. Technorati has a new feature that they have appropriately dubbed “Favorites“. Scoble and Boyd seem to be excited about it. I happen to agree with TDavid at Make you Go Hmm.
Too bad it is only blogs though and doesn’t include RSS feeds. If you try to add an RSS feed it barks back in red text. Also there is a maximum of 50 blogs. I have a reading list of nearly 400 RSS feeds (perhaps 300 of which are blogs) and I’m supposed to whittle that down to 50? Though I probably should do this, Technorati isn’t about to force my hand.
While I don’t have quite 400 feeds that I read on a normal basis, my list is at nearly 100 and growing. Asking me to pare it down to 50 is kinda silly. Sure it’s supposed to be just favorites, but come on now. That’s what those are. I have nearly 100 favorites out of nearly 29 Million! Technorati of all places should realize the scale of the blogosphere and realize that 50 just won’t be enough for most of us. I also noticed that the lists are default public and there is not ability to make them private. I guess that leaves out my pron list. 😉
At this point the favorites ability in Technorati gets a C/D grade from me. I’m hoping that this is the “released beta” version and that Sifry is watching the blogosphere closely to see how we all react. I’m sure that some minor changes will be happening soon and that the product will gradually become better and better.
Stowe Boyd mentions another interesting point.
Dave also tells me that they at work on a dynamic version of the favorites, based on what you are linking to in your blogging. Now that sounds really optimal. I don’t have to think about updating my blogroll over time, no value judgments: its just based on the empirical realities of what I am linking to. I can’t wait.
Now that would be interesting. My own link cloud. I’m sure that there probably is someone somewhere that is already doing this. And really, don’t we all use our favorites list as a hunting ground for new info? Posting material? Then this really would be nice to have. Wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of adding a site/blogger to my list, Technorati would just take care of it.
Technorati Tags: Technorati, favorites, second opinion
About Shane Ede
Yes, this is definitely a rev 1.0. There’s lots more to come, but we wanted to release this and get feedback and commentary as quickly as possible.
Also, we really didn’t design this as a replacement for your RSS reader, rather it is an easy way to share with others the people you find influential or interesting, and also the ability to scope your searches to what your favorite bloggers are talking about as well…
We’re going to be continually adding and improving the product, so your feedback is totally appreciated. Thanks!
Dave
Thanks for the Comment Dave. I really do like having most of my tools in one place and would love to see the 50 limit removed or increased. I really like it’s integration into the search as well, but fear it may cause a keyhole search in that it might limit the addition of new blogs.
Thanks for the addition to the technorati family. look forward to it’s growth.