Library related blogs: Library 2.0 Activity #16

I used Topix years ago, mainly to browse the news. It has become much more sophisticated as a news feed, obviously. I like its ability to focus on news from particular types of media for a specified locality, or just a given locality or source. It tends to search general news blogs and news media outlets, not as many of the specialty blogs. If one can search for a topic and click on a bread crumb trail back to Topix's assigned headings, one can then find an RSS feed. Syndic8 has a traditional hierarchical approach, and seemed to have more limited offerings. It had no graphics. The site was down when I revisited it tonight. I like the graphics and tag-intensive Technorati site, which has the most sophisticated means of searching blogs, including separate tabs for photographs, blogs, postings and video content. I frankly prefer the simplicity of Google Reader's interface when it comes to adding subscriptions to specific blogs. Topix and Technorati offer more opportunites for knowledge discovery, for culling information from a variety of sources. I do like Topix's searchability and customization features, though it's a bit rigid with its directory. I liked Technorati's ability to subscribe to particular search results and its links to related tags, including an option to search non-English authorities. I liked Syndic8 the least, because of its limited descriptive information.