More than a few are wondering what Google has in store with its new toy, Blogger. No one doubts that blogging is the newest and hottest thing on the web, but as of yet, no one’s got a clue how to make money with it.
And neither did I, until late last night…
I was in the middle of one of those “I’m a spy saving the world” dreams, when I was inexplicably awakened by the following idea. “What’s the biggest weakness with blogs?” I asked my sleepy self. Integration. What do I mean? Stick with me here…
Brian publishes a blog post about toe fungus. This new piece of crap/knowledge/data is available for the world to see, but it is indexed only in context of Brian’s Blog. In an ideal blogging world, as I published my treatise on toe fungus, it would be instantly published or linked to other fungus-releated posts.
This is where Google, with its crazy knack for keyword indexing, comes in. Perhaps in a happier, Googlier world, our published posts will be automatically screened for keywords and published in like blogs or forums. Or, more likely we will find ourselves satisfying our interest in toe fungus on blogs.google.com: a blog search engine which cross-indexes blog posts by topic.
Imagine being able to scan the titles of all “Apple iPod Hack” posts added this morning from various authors. And, of course, Google could serve up iPod Accessory ads a la text in the sidebar. The difference between this and your average run-of-the-mill Google search? Immediacy. By “pinging” Google with new posts (something Blogger will likely do automatically), new material can be gathered and indexed as it is published.
Crazy, huh? Well, so is Powering aircraft with lasers. And people are already doing it. Then again, people were already doing search before Google came.
Anyway, it could have been the bed-head talking, but in case it happens, you heard it here first.
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October 11th, 2003 at 11:22 am
Check out Technorati and Feedster… Both have search engines for blogs.
I’ve set up your blog so that every time you post you ping Technorati and get pushed to the top of the bot’s queue :).