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! 
Wow, the most useful feature for a long time!
Wow, the most useful feature for a long time!
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
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
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
That’s a cool feature. Looks like I will be visiting them more often now.
That’s a cool feature. Looks like I will be visiting them more often now.
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.
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.
Looks good in theory, but most of the spam blogs with my name plastered all over them seem to have “some authority.”
Looks good in theory, but most of the spam blogs with my name plastered all over them seem to have “some authority.”
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
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
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.
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.
Steph: I actually agree with you. Authority isn’t equal to popularity. Although humans often mistake it for such.
Steph: I actually agree with you. Authority isn’t equal to popularity. Although humans often mistake it for such.
[...] 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. [...]
[...] Technorati has added a new feature which enables folks to rank their searches according to authority. This is cool. [...]
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 …
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)
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)
[...] 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. [...]
Oh, my ego feels good now!
That, I’m afraid, is all that it’s good for…
Oh, my ego feels good now!
That, I’m afraid, is all that it’s good for…
Technorati löst 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”.
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
[...] 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.” [...]
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.
[...] Scobleizer – Technorati adds authority weighting “But, maybe you want more noise. Well, it’s up to you now!” (tags: technorati rss search) [...]
[...] 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. [...]
[...] Technorati has just added ‘authority’ filtering to their search (see Scoble, TechCrunch, Dave Sifry, et cetera). [...]
[...] Jack Krupansky leaves an excellent comment on Scobelizer: “to Technorati, “authority” is simply popularity. That makes *no* sense.“ [...]
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…
[...] Via Megite, Scobleizer the Microsoft Geek Blogger leads a wave of comment on Technorati, the well-known meme processor for the marketplace of ideas. [...]
[...] 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. [...]
[...] Technorati adds authority weighting – Scoble. In a related post, Rubel asks, “What is authority?” [...]
[...] 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. [...]
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?
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?
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
[...] 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? [...]
[...] 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? [...]
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).
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).
Ignore me. I was just looking at “sort by authority”. I’ll play around with the new feature now
Ignore me. I was just looking at “sort by authority”. I’ll play around with the new feature now
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.
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.
Jason DeFillippo and Niall Kennedy, just got their “authority” delisted.