Sifry: Technorati's Alive and Well

Just when you weren't sure about the premier blog search engine Technorati anymore – the company blog bereft of Blogosphere reports, occasionally slow (or futile) search queries, no buzz anywhere – Technorati chief Dave Sifry pops online to say everything's gravy.

Don't hold your breath on the State of the Blogosphere report, though. The Blogosphere's all grown up now and has changed its name to the Live Web, a post-pubescent transmogrification that includes blogs, photos, videos, music, events, and tags. Sifry's State of the Live Web report is due out later this week.


"As the use of tags becomes more ubiquitous across all forms of social media and the publishing platforms that support them," he said, "they've become the lingua franca of the Live Web - the way in which people all over the world indicate what topics or issues are top of mind and guiding self-expression."

Business has been good for Technorati. In March, the site attracted over nine million unique visitors, a 141 percent increase over the previous quarter. Online metrics firm Scobeleizer is challenging his readers to pit the two engines against each other and share results. Early testing shows Technorati bringing back twice as many results as Google.

"It does look like Technorati has pulled ahead again in this race," he said. "The UI on Technorati is certainly ahead of Google’s."

Speaking of UI's,