After 911 AltaVista scored some rare Brownie Points against Google, in the press, because Google didn’t have news search, but AV did, via Moreover. Google News was built largely as a result of 911.
It proved that Moreover was a news search engine, but it was too late.
Our PR company had told us that ‘search is dead’ and without a revenue model for search engines, there was pressure from all sides to make Moreover something else – which resulted in all sorts of convoluted bullshit and meant that Moreover never had decent technology for full-text search.
Eppur Si Muove.
Technorati is in the same boat, there is probably a great deal of pressure not to call it a blog search engine, and perhaps for a different reason than Moreover – that Google is too difficult to take head on.
I may sound arrogant, but I cant help feeling that I’ve seen this train wreck before, and am also a particular fan of
Dave Sifry who I think has had a rough deal lately.
Technorati is a Blog Search Engine, period. It has some peripheral features that help differentiate, but they are peripheral. Anyone who thinks differently on the board or within the company, is a liability.
I say all this because Google have finally got their act together with Blog Search, and the window of opportunity for Technorati to be what they are, and what they created, is closing.