week 6, Thing 14; Technorati

This was a very interesting tool that opened a new world for me about blogging. The video was helpful in finding out where to search in different ways. Searching by blog using Learning 2.0 brought up numerous hits that did not directly relate to the key word idea I was searching for. It gave hits for any combination of Learning and 2.0. I did see some recent posts by others who are pursuing 23 Things. Searching by directory drastically reduced the number of hits to 553, but again, really had to search to find something most relevant. Using the tags search was quite a surprise as it showed only a few direct hits on the key word on the first page and also some links to video clips. This was the most useful search.
I think of myself as someone who keeps fairly abreast of the news--living with a news editor--and with the more popular culture, but doing the blog searches for favorites, top search and top blogs--I was amazed at how out of touch I apparently am in regard to the younger generations. I did not even recognize some of the names or subjects on top blogs and favorites! After looking at a few, I felt even more of a dinosaur, especially after reading blogs about Ron Paul running for President, popular music hits from groups I never heard of, etc. I realized that if you want to know what teens, college age and 20 somethings in particular are talking about and seeing as important doing Technorati blog search would be one way to keep in touch. Of course I was not as surprised by the amount of interest in technology blogs as this is such a hot topic and again, one I'm not as familiar with.
I mentioned this site to my husband and was surprised that his news organization will take punitive action, including dismissal for employees reading blogs at work. It seems they may be missing the boat in keeping a pulse on what different segments of the population are thinking and where the interest are.