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?

It is indeed a sad week for bloggers, especially student bloggers. A dental student at the Marquette University Dental School has been charged for saying “crude, demeaning and unprofessional remarks”, and has been sentenced to probation on the condition that he plead guilty. Oh, and no blogging either.

This is just outrageous. His blog is pretty innocuous, and talks about normal student subjects. The most offensive remarks are about a professor who he insulted by saying he wasn’t fit to teach. I don’t know about you, but doesn’t free speech mean anything anymore? He didn’t even mention the professor’s name, which clears him of potential libel charges.

I suggest all student bloggers at universities be on caution now. A precendence has been set–Marquette is responding way to harshly against his blog posts. They do have all the right to punish him, but it’s not really worth it. From the comments about what he said, he is definitely not a rabble-rouser. This incident is well covered by other blogs.

I’ve recently been accepted to blog for Slashfood. You can check out my posts. Finally, I get to let go and write more about food on my off time. It’s a bit weird blogging on a site that isn’t my personal site, but it’s a good change. I actually have deadlines now (about four posts a day is what I need to do), and it’s been energizing me to gather resources and write more often.

It’s definitely stimulating. Plus, I can finally say I’m a paid blogger.

So anytime you need your food blog fix, check out Slashfood. We put out an insane number of posts a day, so you’ll never be bored.

I don’t have a TV in my home in San Francisco, so the only time when I get any time with the tube is at my parents’ home in Colorado. Usually, I get all my news from blogs and other independent media sources (I rarely surf CNN.com) Needless to say, it’s always a very surreal experience actually watching CNN on TV.

What I find most amusing is that there are actually Blog Reporters on the CNN team. I saw this for the first time this morning when they did their blog segment, which gives an overview of notable blogs (in this case, ones that are relevant to the London bombings). They surfed to many of the sites I was looking at yesterday when the tragedy occured. I almost felt like the mainstream media were intruding into my space–it’s very weird to see familiar webpages on the TV. Also, they were shooting computer screens directly, and not screen capturing it. This is awkward at best–providing a low quality view of the webpages. They even had to pan around to see the whole webpage! It’s absolutely an awful way to convey the wealth of information in the blogosphere.