#9 RSS Feed Search Tools & "Claiming" My Blog

I found the Bloglines Search Tool to be the most useful when I am looking for information from feeds I already subscribe to. For example I can put in the search term "blogroll" and see how many folks have commented on the topic. Speaking of blogrolls, I went ahead and added one for the Questing Librarian in the side bar. Sorry it's so long! Everything is so interesting and I don't want to miss out.

For the other search tools I tried the keyword phrases: "learning 2.0", "library 2.0", "web 2.0", and "second life". Feedster has a Google type interface and seemed straightforward to use. It seemed best for specific searches instead of general browsing. Be sure to use Feedster's proper syntax (such as putting quotes around a phrase) and sort in the order you want for the kind of hits you are looking for (date or relavance).

Topix.net is more browser centric, similar to Yahoo. Having the large topic categories at the top of the screen was useful to get an idea of what the site offered. It reminded me of what Google News and Yahoo! News offer but with the ability for readers to comment on articles. I really liked the news channel guide to help me see what was available. There is literally a category for everything under the sun. I still can't believe that there is a category for foie-gras, luther burgers, and turduckens (that's a turkey-duck-chicken put together in a roll for slicing). I guess folks want news for just about anything.

I found Syndic8.com the most confusing. I really started to feel information overload looking at this one. At first it seemed to be targeted more to webmasters that to the normal joe surfer. I had to go to feed categories to start making sense of it. Even then I really had to dig through the categories to find anything useful. Category wise it seemed focused on the investor or business or sports. When I did find the library feeds they were mostly focused on technical services.

I have "claimed" my blog on Technorati.com. It was a very simple process. Now I have a blog search tool that I've added to the Questing Librarian so that readers can search by key word for what ever topic they are interested in on the blog. I can also see who has linked to my blog. Very neat! This seems to carry some of the best features of both a search tool and a browsing directory. The layout was very easy to follow. The popular blog listing made it easy to see what was useful to alot of people. The search box at the top of the home page let you search by keyword if that was simpler for you.

I also tried Google Blogsearch. It was very much like Feedster.com except that it had Google's advanced search features and preferences options. You can sort by relevance or date and also quickly link to just those blogs that have posted for the last hour, 12 hours, day, week, or longer period of time.

Overall I'd use Technorati or Topix to search for feeds if I just want to browse to see what's out there. If I had something specific I was looking for then I'd probably use any of them except Syndic8.com. It was by far the most confusing resourse. I'd only use it if the others didn't yield any results.