Technorati adds authority weighting
Technorati just turned on a new feature: if you are searching Technorati, for, say “Technology” blogs you get a choice: you can see them all, or you can see the ones that have a lot of “authority” in that space. I didn’t see that feature over the weekend, so I think Dave Sifry and crew just turned that on (look for a slider at the top of the results — click it to change the kind of result you get back). I’m not sure how useful it is, but if you search on a general term like, say, “photography” it does seem to bring back results with less noise. But, maybe you want more noise. Well, it’s up to you now! You’re the gatekeeper! I’ll play more with it later. What do you think?
Update: it sure gets rid of a lot of noise on my ego search. Oh, my ego feels good now! :-)
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February 13th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Wow, the most useful feature for a long time! :-)
February 13th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
What is Authority?
Scoble says that Technorati just turned on a new feature that sorts keyword searches by authority (e.g. in-bound links). This triggers a philosphical question. What IS authority? According to the Oxford Dictionary, authority is: a) the power or right
February 13th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Their description says “Technorati calculates a blog’s authority by how many people link to it.” In other words, to Technorati, “authority” is simply popularity. That makes *no* sense. If it’s popularity, call it popularity. I suppose we should be thankful they didn’t call it “relevance”.
Why not be honest is just label the slider “links”, with one end labeled “lightly linked” and the other “heavily linked”.
And have radio buttons for whether you want results sorted by “date” (the current/old way Technorati did things), and “links/popularity”.
Besides, “Authority” connotes hierarchy, and Cluetrain Manifesto Thesis #7 says links are supposed to *subvert* hierarchy, not *enable* it.
– Jack Krupansky
February 13th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
That’s a cool feature. Looks like I will be visiting them more often now.
February 13th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
I don’t like this feature. I am all over the first page of Tailrank, but when I ask for authority Scoble takes my place. Oh well.
February 13th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Looks good in theory, but most of the spam blogs with my name plastered all over them seem to have “some authority.”
February 13th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
I posted more about the new filtering feature here:
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000420.html
We’re looing for your comments and feedback. Thanks!
Dave
February 13th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
I have to admit I don’t like equating popularity to authority. Something there doesn’t ring right, but I can’t exactly nail it down. Is the majority always right? Do you have no authority on a topic unless your blog is widely linked? If you have lots of incoming links, does that mean you have authority on any topic you decide to cover? This needs more thinking.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Steph: I actually agree with you. Authority isn’t equal to popularity. Although humans often mistake it for such.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
[...] Robert Scoble points out that Technorati has taken a shot at the problem, though. They assign authority to a post based on how many links a blog has. They’ve quietly released an “authority” slider to allow results to be filtered. See results anywhere from all blogs, to just blogs with hundreds of links. The image below shows the slider at the top and the text within the imagedescribes how it works. [...]
February 13th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
[...] Technorati has added a new feature which enables folks to rank their searches according to authority. This is cool. [...]
February 13th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Sifry’s State of the Blogosphere part 2 … the middle is magic
David hinted at part 2 of his State of the Blogosphere report this weekend at Northern Voice. I’ll start with his summary, then get …
February 13th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
I agree with Steph - like pagerank, popularity is just one approach to determining relevancy - but it too can be gamed and often has nothing to do with ‘authority’. As hacking memorandum showed, even the best of algorithms can be gotten the better of.
As an optional feature it is ok I guess, but just because some people are sitting at the cool kids table does not mean they are the authority. Funny how most of us geeks never sat at the cool kids table growing up and how we detested such egocentric attitudes - but now we are just emulating what we secretly wanted to be a part of before in so many parts of our online and offline lives.
An interesting thought on this just came to me which hopefully some people here can expand further:
Popularity = awareness * excitement
The feature on technorati may prove to be useful over time, but I still think it is a combination of human inputs and computer algorithms that are necessary for truly relevant results. When it comes to understanding levels of authority, I believe the same general rules apply. The logic boards are good for linear processing, but the human brain is what will put things in the proper context…
As it is, this feature just looks like a way of filtering out the long tail, edge thinking so searchers can focus on the head of the tail - ultimately reducing the variety of inputs and leading to more like minded thinking. (cross posted to my blog)
February 14th, 2006 at 12:21 am
[...] Robert Scoble annonce que Technorati aurait résolu le problème. Discrètement ils ont introduit un filtre par autorité (”authority”) qui permet d’affiner les résultats de vos recherches. Vous pouvez visualisez les résultats en visualisant tous les blogs pertinents ou affiner jusqu’aux blogs qui possèdent quelques centaines de liens entrants. Ils fixent un indice d’autorité à un billet en fonction du nombre de liens entrants que possède un blog; L’image ci-dessous illustre le curseur pour l’indice d’autorité et le texte au sein de l’image en détaille le fonctionnement. [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 1:40 am
Oh, my ego feels good now!
That, I’m afraid, is all that it’s good for…
February 14th, 2006 at 1:56 am
Technorati lst ein Problem
Weil Technorati 28,7 Millionen Blogs durchsucht, findet man dort gerade bei wichtigen Themen viel zu viel - und meist Müll. Seit Montag gibt es eine Lösung für das Problem. Und Blog Age bekommt “some authority”.
February 14th, 2006 at 2:25 am
Technorati, Authority, and Getting Names Right
TechCrunch (and others) posts about Technorati’s new authority feature which filters results by the number of inlinks to a post. Rubel discusses the notion of authority and why the use of inlinks as a proxy may dilute the meaning of
February 14th, 2006 at 3:54 am
[...] Scoble writes on his blog “I’m not sure how useful it is, but if you search on a general term like, say, ‘photography’ it does seem to bring back results with less noise.” [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 4:15 am
Technorati añade el principio de “autoridad” a sus búsquedas
Technorati ha añadido un “deslizador” al realizar una búsqueda con el que puedes restringir la búsqueda entre los blogs con mayor “autoridad” (que son los más enlazados) o hacer una búsqueda más amplia.
February 14th, 2006 at 4:23 am
[...] Scobleizer - Technorati adds authority weighting “But, maybe you want more noise. Well, it’s up to you now!” (tags: technorati rss search) [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 4:42 am
[...] Technorati just released an “Authority” tool (via TechCrunch and Scobleizer) which lets you filter search results by, well, authority. In theory it could give you more relevant search results, who doesn’t want that, and possibly it will. [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 5:13 am
[...] Technorati has just added ‘authority’ filtering to their search (see Scoble, TechCrunch, Dave Sifry, et cetera). [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 5:27 am
[...] Jack Krupansky leaves an excellent comment on Scobelizer: “to Technorati, “authority” is simply popularity. That makes *no* sense.“ [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 5:35 am
Blogmania
Lots of blogging fun to be had in today’s reading:
Blogs to Riches - New York Magazine
Technorati adds authority weighting - Scoble. In a related post, Rubel asks, “What is authority?”
State of the Blogosphere Part 2: Beyond Sear…
February 14th, 2006 at 5:44 am
[...] Via Megite, Scobleizer the Microsoft Geek Blogger leads a wave of comment on Technorati, the well-known meme processor for the marketplace of ideas. [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 6:33 am
[...] Scobleizer: Technorati just turned on a new feature: if you are searching Technorati, for, say “Technology” blogs you get a choice: you can see them all, or you can see the ones that have a lot of “authority” in that space. [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 7:03 am
[...] Technorati adds authority weighting - Scoble. In a related post, Rubel asks, “What is authority?” [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 7:21 am
[...] I have been AWOL from Dave Sifry’s Technorati for quite some time. Back in June when I became blog-obsessed I was using Technorati on a daily basis. Recently I realized it had been weeks since I used the search engine to find something. Robert Scoble (Microsoft’s blogger extraordinarie) wrote about a new new feature that Technorati offers - authority weighting. The feature is simple, if you are searching on a particular topic you can simply search all of the records or just those with "authority." Once you do a search just look for the little slider at the top of the results and give it a try. [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 8:23 am
I think I’ve finally nailed down what bothers me, while discussing with Kevin: authority is qualitative, popularity is quantitative.
Calling “number of incoming links” authority makes it sound as though it’s a qualitative evaluation, when it is quantitative. Calling popularity authority is turning a quantitative evaluation into a qualitative one with a flick of a magic wand.
I’m not sure authority can be measured by any algorithm. Let’s not pretend it can.
Does this make sense?
February 14th, 2006 at 8:36 am
Technocrati ‘Authority”: Google ‘Popularity’
Played with Technocrati’s new ‘Authority’ feature and thought it a good addition but a bad choice of name. The problem is that we already kowtow too much to popularity, and make too many decisions based on what others think is
February 14th, 2006 at 9:53 am
[...] The chatter around Technorati’s Authority feature is so much this morning, that my mind hurts. Guys, did you try it out? Please do, and then you will realize that its not that good. I did that with Scoble recommended “Technology” link, and guess what, I couldn’t find myself on search results - for seven pages. I guess I have no authority in “technology.” Tick, done and forgotten. What else you got Dave? [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 10:56 am
[...] More from Technorati, this time a new authority weighting mechanism. Says Scoble: I’m not sure how useful it is, but if you search on a general term like, say, “photography” it does seem to bring back results with less noise. But, maybe you want more noise. Well, it’s up to you now! You’re the gatekeeper! I’ll play more with it later. What do you think? [...]
February 14th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Erm… Hasn’t this been around from day 1? Seriously. I’ve used this hundreds of times, unless it’s somehow “new” (with the same name).
February 14th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Ignore me. I was just looking at “sort by authority”. I’ll play around with the new feature now ;)
February 14th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Authority? Just like the PageRank? Ha, I’m not sure it’s meaning. Being judged by others makes me uncomfored, first, no one have the power to judge you except your self. Two, any judgement is advise in general for most people. No one knows how worth the blog is, for a specified guy who is just visiting it. Because it comes from how many useful information “this guy” could be found on the blog. Technorati is making a boreding job, except for satisfieding personal vanity.
February 14th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Jason DeFillippo and Niall Kennedy, just got their “authority” delisted. ;)
February 14th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Google News and AdSense’s Role in Blog Spam
Technology Evangelist has been live on Google News for two weeks now, giving us time to analyze how this new syndication source has effected our traffic. While our traffic has increased significantly since being added to Google News, the most interesti…
February 15th, 2006 at 3:50 am
[...] No responses to ‘Gmail goes down, Yahoo displays favicons’. RSS feed for comments and Trackback URI for ‘Gmail goes down, Yahoo displaysfavicons’. [...]
February 15th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
[...] Technorati adds authority weighting — Robert Scoble [...]
February 15th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
[...] Desde ayer Technorati permite que los resultados de las búsquedas que realices en su motor puedan ser “ajustadas” por “autoridad”; ahora cuando la autoridad es derivada de la suma de links en realidad es popularidad y Steve Rubel hace un excelente post sobre el tema: Does this mean Britney Spears is an authority too just because she’s popular?… Yet, in a Google society links convey authority in our mind. Honestly, links are temporary. Authority to me sounds more permanent. This connotes that Boing Boing’s the most authoritative site on the Web, according to Technorati. Sure, it’s an awesome blog, but can you tell me what they’re an authority about? [...]
February 16th, 2006 at 2:01 am
[...] UPDATE: I don’t claim to an authority weighted blogger, all I know is that most of these technorati links are bogus and that is BS! Technorati, data_ownership Save this story to your del.icio.us account [...]
February 16th, 2006 at 11:28 am
[...] Robert Scoble points out that Technorati has taken a shot at the problem, though. They’ve quietly released an “authority” slider to allow results to be filtered. See results anywhere from all blogs, to just blogs with hundreds of links. They assign authority to a post based on how many links a blog has. The image below shows the slider at the top and the text within the imagedescribes how it works. [...]
February 16th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
[...] Technorati adds authority weighting - Scoble What is authority? - Rubel [...]
February 25th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
[...] Technorati recently introduced a “filter by authority” feature to their blog search. The idea, from CEO Dave Sifry’s blog, is to “[make] it easy to refine a search and look for either a wider array of thoughts and opinions, or to narrow the search to only bloggers that have lots of other people linking to them. This gives you the power to decide how much filtering you want.”Scoble, Steve Reubel, and TechCrunch all offer opinions. It’s worth reading the comments for each entry. [...]
September 9th, 2006 at 12:51 am
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November 16th, 2006 at 5:12 am
Technorati just turned on a new feature: if you are searching Technorati, for, say “Technology” blogs you get a choice: you can see them all, or you can see the ones that have a lot of “authority” in that space. I didn’t see that feature over the weekend, so I think Dave Sifry and crew just turned that on (look for a slider at the top of the results — click it to change the kind of result you get back). I’m not sure how useful it is, but if you search on a general term like, say, “photography” it does seem to bring back results with less noise. But, online matchmaking services Matchmaking Dating service
Matchmaking Dating service maybe you want more noise. Well, it’s up to you now! You’re the gatekeeper! I’ll play more with it later. What do you think?
dunno
May 8th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
IMO, Technorati needs to weigh incoming blog counts by their ‘Authority.’
http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/suggestion-for-technorati-blog.html
–rj
September 8th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I’m still stumped as to how so many purely spam blogs have a relatively high authority. What’s going on there?
September 12th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
It is fascinating how “authority” has taken over the blogosphere and web, in general. It is re-defining what is news, really.
Great insight!
Ted
January 17th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I am still unable to understand how people with websites have thousands of authorities.
Can anyone throw light on this??