New Search Engines Help Users Find Weblogs

(Migrated weblog post from LSR)

Over at Micro Persuasion Steve Rubel talks about how as of late there have been a number of different new search engines that are starting to focus more on searching contents in weblogs than everything else. And he references a particular news article by the WSJ that expands further on it: New Search Engines Help Users Find Blogs.

I must say that as I read through the news article it kind of felt familiar with what I have been doing now for a few months already whenever I need to look for information that is not necessarily stored in static web sites. As you have been able to read previously in my weblog not everything out there in the search engine business world is just about Google, Yahoo! or MSN Search. There are a number of different, and yet, equally powerful, new search engines that are switching their focus into providing a new alternative way of getting access to information; and that is through weblogs.

Many people may doubt the authenticity and thoroughness of the information but one thing for sure is that more and more people are turning to web sites like IceRocket (One of my favourite search engines of all times, by the way) or Technorati to search for content stored in weblogs. And it is not happening with just a few hundred searches but several thousands a day, if not more. People are realising that just having access to content stored in static web sites is no longer good enough. Readers want to hear as well about what other people have got to say about a particular topic. They want to get the story and also who is behind the story. That personal touch that not many other sites, apart from Weblogs and, probably, Wikis as well, are able to provide.

All that is just an incipient urge to share knowledge and information through adopting an innate social networking need to have access to just something more than the information. People are starting to follow up not only on information but also on the people behind that information. And that is probably one of the key success factors that would be put together into the 21st century to help Knowledge Management survive and make it through as the dynamic organism it once was. Except that this time it will be making use of the social networking aspects to bring forward a much more dynamic and engaging way of exchanging information. And to that extent both Weblogs and Wikis” will be an integral part of it. Thus whoever thought that both Weblogs and Wikis do not have an add valued in the KM space they should probably think about it twice. Because whether we like it or not they do have a value and, probably, much more powerful than any other traditional tools and processes.