ResearchBuzz

BlawgSearch ( http://blawgsearch.justia.com/ ), a search engine for just legal blogs, is now in beta. It’s added RSS feeds for searches and a “few hundred” more blogs, though there are many more in the pipe to be added. (There are currently over 1600 blogs arranged by category.)

There’s also a new search engine at http://www.Blawgs.fm , which finds only legal blog posts that have video or audio files.) There’s also a directory of almost one hundred podcasts, or blawgcasts as they’re called. In addition to the directory and the search you’ll also see a tag cloud for recent blog posts and recent search terms.

After I covered Placeblogger last month, I got a pointer to another site that focuses on local news and blogs. This one started in Virginia and covers 21 states. It’s called Blognetnews.com and when you visit www.blognetnews.com , it seems to automatically drop you in the Virginia section to start (this is a bit annoying.)

You can choose another place by using the pull-down menu on the right; states covered include Arizona, California, New York, and Ohio. Local contents on the left side of the page include frequently-linked-to news items (and sometimes news sources; find out what the local people are reading/watching), most recent news items (which you can filter by political orientation and sometimes by geographic region), and a list of blogs associated with that particular state. Smack in the middle of the page there’s a search engine for all the state’s blogs. I was going to complain that it’s not easy to get a full list of RSS feeds associated with a particular state, but I looked around a little bit more and found an OPML link at the bottom of the state’s page.

If you’re looking for the latest buzz check out the right side of the page, which features the most linked blogs, the most active blogs, and the most commented posts for that area.

I like the idea of Blognetnews in theory, but I have a concern. Three or four years ago, I would have thought, “Wow, a whole state, that’s a great amount of content!” Now, I’m thinking, “Wow, a whole state, that’s a pretty overwhelming number of blogs!” Unless the blogs included are being narrowed down in some way (only political, only media-sourced, etc.) I worry that this might be too much content to keep up via an interface like this.

Actually I knew about this before Technorati’s SuperBowl ad, but it had to sit in my queue for a while. Blogging search engine Technorati is allowing users to give their own slants on hot topics with a new feature called WTF. Ostensibly this stands for “Where’s the Fire.” Uh-huh. Anyway, you can check it out at http://www.technorati.com/wtf/ .

It’s an interesting idea; instead of yet another tagging feature or another “claim your URL” filters, users are invited to submit explanations of searched for topics, or relevant link lists. When I looked at the feature there were a few blurbs available for Prince’s performance at the SuperBowl, YouTube, and Windows Vista.

What was actually submitted varied a lot; the Windows Vista blurbs, for example, ranged from link lists to single pointers at useful articles to brief discussions of what Vista is to a slap against Bill Gates. If you have a Technorati account you can vote for the WTF blurbs that you find the most interesting/useful. In case you don’t find ANYTHING interesting or useful, you can also view full Technorati search results for that particular topic.

If you want to write a WTF blurb, you’ll have to be a registered Technorati user. This seems like an interesting idea assuming the spammers don’t get hold of it, and some kind of consensus works out as to basic infrastructure of a blurb — is it a non partial overview, a set of related resources, an opinion, or all of the above. I’d just like to have some idea of what to expect….