Sunday, October 30, 2005

Speaking with Mr. Sifry

When guys used to give me their numbers and said "call me," I usually thought to myself, "yeah, in your dreams." But when the CEO of Technorati gives you his number, those old rules don't apply.

So, yes, I called Dave Sifry. Got the voicemail. Left a message.

He said he'd call again, but I know CEOs are busy guys. So, I called again.

I am, obviously, not lacking in chutzpah.

Dave was friendly, and very gracious; asked what about Technorati might not be working for me and what about it could he explain. Mentioned that, for the most part, I used Technorati to check my own stats and standing--doing the old "ego search" and we both laughed at that one. (it seems to be quite common among bloggers.) Noted to him that Technorati doesn't seem to be counting permalinks quite the way it did, although it is now counting post links much better.

I used to like it when it gave me a more accurate permalink count--but I understand how it's difficult to get the metrics to balance out post and perma links and keep up with the ever-expanding nature of the blogosphere.

It really *is* a big job.

Mentioned to Dave that I thought Technorati's basic search features such as Watchlists would be great for anyone with a business (or particular interest) who might want to monitor what's being said about a particular product or interest. But that wasn't what I used it for. Was very frank and mentioned that I didn't think Technorati's features worked all that well for social blogging...(although, according to one social blogger I know, Watchlists work pretty good)

Mentioned, too, that I don't necessarily search for stuff on blogs--my blog reading seems mostly for pleasure, not information. Perhaps it's weird--or just not what the heavily-surveyed people do with blogs. Who knows? Then we went over to the new BlogFinder section of Technorati--where Dave explained a bit about customizing the features and finding blogs on this feature. I played around with it for a bit--didn't find anything related to western Massachusetts, Holyoke, Chicopee, Springfield (although did find Springfield,MO)

Sadly, I wasn't finding any local bloggers. BlogFinder works when people participate--but if people don't participate, you can't find them. So, how do ya get people to participate???

Dave mentioned that Technorati's features could help find the "authoritative" blogs on this or that...the "authoritative" blogs seem to be the ones most linked. Guess that *does* impart authority (frankly, I think who the author is might also impart authority) The "recently updated" blogs were more fun...

This part of our conversation reminded me of a conversation I had with Laurel Touby, CEO of MediaBistro--she asked me why there might be so few women blog readers, and hazarded her own guess that women simply do not spend as much time on the Net as men do, and might not be looking for information of the same type or kind that men look for. That's a distinct possibility...

Dave and I got to talking a bit about search habits and where things might be going with blogging--with the creation of so many blogs and the possibilities of blogs being abandoned when people figure out that they're really not all that easy to keep up on and there's no guarantee of beaucoup readers. Talked a bit about a side project I recently started....

And then he had a meeting. That was fine. I was surprised he gave me as much of his time as he did.

Before he hung up, he left me with a small thought that was a kind of compliment--I won't repeat it as it seemed kind of like a bit of personal advice.

He's recognized something I wasn't aware of--not the self-flaggelation, but the "A" ranking....Thinking about it, though, I get it now.

Thanks, Dave. Catch you again sometime.

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