Technorati Places Blog Finder Beta Online

A new version of the blog tracking site's search engine lets users sift through millions of blogs based on topic tags. The new on the Technorati blog: "Blog Finder takes the power of the folksonomy - bottom-up, user-generated tags - and applies it to the Blogosphere. Looking for a blog about nanotechnology, sports, or politics? Look no further. Type in any text, or click on a featured tag, and find blogs on any subject. You can even use "OR" to put multiple tags together, like: Find a blog about Motherhood OR Fatherhood OR Parenting. By default, the blogs are presented in order of authority, which means highly-linked blogs appear first. So each of these Blog Finder pages is like a mini Top 100 for any topic you can imagine. You can also sort each tag by how recently the blogs have updated, or alphabetical by title." Bloggers can become Technorati members and choose the tags, up to 20, they want to have assigned to their blogs. Non-members can include snippets of html code containing tags and ping Technorati to get their blogs included. The service, being in beta, has its teething problems. Right now the blog finder only searches by tags. Search Engine Watch's David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him