Jul 13 2005

Technorati Alternatives

Category: Blogging — Jeremy Wright @ 9:09 am

Technorati is dying, says the Blog Herald:

A melodramatic title to be sure, but I didn’t want to use Technorati is broken because I’ve used it before, and also I’m sad. Because Technorati is dying. It’s not the same depth of sadness you’d have for a close friend or family member, its more like losing an associate, you know, the sort of person you wave to or say Gday (sorry Hi for US readers) to on your way into work.

Obviously I agree with this. It doesn’t need to be permanent, but right now, bloggers need an alternative.

So, what are the other options?

PubSub is an obvious choice, but I fear it’s slowly decaying as well, as it isn’t spotting anywhere near the number of links that Bloglines is either. Bloglines is good in its own way, but sometimes searches come back with a “database error” (fixed upon refresh), and it isn’t really the fastest. Blogpulse is nice, accurate and fast, but it isn’t really geared towards “counting links”, which is what most bloggers want.

So, what is the real alternative to Technorati?

IceRocket.

I only discovered this service in the last few days, probably thanks to a tip from Jason (but I’m not sure).

IceRocket is like Google + Feedster + Blogpulse.

You can search, you can find up-to-the-hour links, you can trend searches and you can create RSS feeds from searches and link requests.

I’ve only been using it for a few days, but so far it’s tickling me as the best of the bunch.

If you are having any degree of frustration with Technorati, I’d highly recommend you at least give IceRocket a try. It’s got an awful name, but it might just do the trick.

14 Responses to “Technorati Alternatives”

  1. Duncan Riley says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 10:32 am

    As Ive tried to write that although there are some great alternatives they just sill aren’t the same as the old Technorati, but I guess I’ve been around to long, time to get on and with the times etc, etc… :-)

  2. Patrick says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 11:21 am

    I mentioned IceRocket to you (their trend service at http://trend.icerocket.com) during the book reviewing. :)

  3. Randy Charles Morin says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 12:17 pm

    Unfortunately, unlike Feedster and Blogpulse, Ice Rocket does not allow for adhoc RSS queries. This makes it impossible to build applications on top of their APIs, like we did with Technorati. For instance, the kbcafe search engine [http://www.kbcafe.com/search.aspx] is built entirely on adhoc APIs, but I’m not able to add Ice Rocket because of this severe limitation.

  4. Blake says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 12:46 pm

    Thanks for your comments guys. If you have any suggestions on things you’d like to see done, please email me directly ( rhodes@icerocket.com) and I promise we will get them done.

    Blake
    IceRocket.com

  5. Radiant Marketing Group says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 12:47 pm

    Pushback on Technorati
    Several bloggers, Jeremy Wright in particular, are laying down the law to Technorati regarding their lagtime in getting blog posts indexed and listed.

    I’m probably less upset about that particular factor as I am with the amount of spam blogs that …

  6. Blake says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 1:06 pm

    Randy,

    http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=blog&q=money&rss=1

    We’ve taken care of your issue. Keep the comments coming.

    Blake

  8. The Newest Industry says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 1:21 pm

    Technorati, We hardly knew you…
    Ensight and Blog Herald both discuss the floundering and thrashing of Technorati.

    My take is that they are having a success failure.

    This is how long it takes their servers to deliver on a simple search for “new york”. I have discussed at v…

  9. Real Geek says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 4:05 pm

    IceRocket on kbcafe
    Jeremy Wright: So, what is the real alternative to Technorati? IceRocket.
    Randy @ 12:17 PM: Unfortunately, unlike Feedster and Blogpulse, Ice Rocket does not allow for adhoc RSS queries. This makes it impossible to build applications on top of the…

  10. Vida Vacia 4.1 says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 5:54 pm

    Chau Technorati, hola…
    Technorati viene tan mal que algunos ya dicen, sin más, que se está muriendo y que ya no es más un servicio confiable. En Ensight ya proponen a Icerocket como reemplazo, antes que Blogpulse o Pubsub, dos servicios que para ser francos no me conforma…

  11. Navarik Windward: shipping software weblog says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 7:05 pm

    Shaking out the web, again
    Who will find a way to make real-time, subscription feed-based search useful and usable to a wide range of people? Who will be the next to eat the competitors for breakfast?

  12. padawan.info says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 2:55 pm

    Technorati woes and alternatives
    For a long, long time I’ve been silently complaining at the less than stellar reliability of Technorati. Today I read…

  13. Qumana Blog says:
    July 19th, 2005 at 2:49 am

    Technorati takin’ it on the chin
    Technorati might still be the darling of the MSM, but man us bloggers are right pissed at them.  For good …