Today, Technorati launched a major redesign, both in the look-and-feel and the data architecture. The company is moving in a new direction, one that is focused on searching the “Live Web”, rather than just a blog search. Techcrunch and Steve Rubel both put in their two cents, and are a bit bearish about the changes.
The elephant in the room is clearly Google and their increasing index of blogs and other social media platforms. I’m skeptical that the changes will divert Technorati on a collision course with Google, but they are at least moving somewhat in the right direction. The major positive news is that the site is faster and simpler to use. Gone are the multiple search verticals within Technorati, which are replaced with one search.
But, there are still some changes that are puzzling, including a ticker of search terms “on the move” hovering at the top of the front page. It’s useless to me, and the terms are clearly out of context. Another pet peeve is the ever present popular items tag cloud on the front page. Again, most of the time it’s useless. Finally, when I put in a search query, the results are quite shallow. There are only about 3 blog posts that are on the first page; you have to click again to reveal more. As a power user, this is unacceptable–at least return as many results as Google would.
With all the talks about internal conflicts in the company, it looks like Technorati’s fate is uncertain. I know I use the site less now than a year ago.
Perhaps it would be a good buy for Google?