Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

I looked at Technorati, Search Engine Journal, About.com and a fairly new one called Hakia. I agree with some of my fellow bloggers that Technorati could be intimidating. I did, however, enjoy reading their series of articles: State of the Blogosphere / 2008 , Day 1 through 6. Since I actually enjoy statistics, I was impressed by the depth of some of their studies. Search Engine Journal was even more intimidating. There was too much blog jargon (is that a term?) that I felt I needed a special dictionary for some of their articles. About.com was excellent. I believed the format is easy to read, the articles are geared for some just getting into the "internet arena" and they seemed very current on issues. Hakia is in beta testing and its search method is semantics not keywords. The search technology will enable retrieval of information via concept or meaning match.
I decided to look for reviews of the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyers in all these search engines. I received information from all except Search Engine Journal. Technorati gave me blogs on movie reviews, vampires and the book. About.com gave me several book reviews, some even from book clubs. It also gave me a biography and interview of Stephanie Meyers plus additional information on the other books in her Twilight Series. Hakia gave information solely on book reviews on Twilight.
Overall About.com and Hakia came out on top for what I was searching. They gave me specifics for Twilight and the Twilight Series. Both of these websites were easy to use and quick with results. Since I am doing most of my blogging from home and all I have access to is slow dial-up, I appreciate speed when I can get it.