Unknown Organization

Technorati is a web-based resource that helps users seek out and find useful, relevant, timely and entertaining blogs and blogs posts. Executive Director David Sifly’s original motivation sparked from his desire to help others like him find and surface the universe of blogs and blog content, and give rise to the citizen journalist. Sifly was among the front line of individuals who embraced the concept of blogging early on both as consumer of blogs and as a writer, seeing blogging as a whole new citizen-powered media experience. Before founding Technorati, Sifly was co-founder and CTO of Sputnik, a Wi-Fi gateway company, and previously, he was co- founder of Linuxcare, where he served as CTO and VP of Engineering. He also served as a founding member of the board of Linux International and on the technical advisory board of the National Cybercrime Training Partnership for law enforcement.

Officially founded in 2002, Technorati had hoped to give voice to a relatively small number of bloggers. As the blogging and user-generated content phenomenon grew and changed, Marketing Director Derek Gordon said the staff realized something more profound was possible: “That people — real people, no longer constrained by access to a means of mass communication — could be empowered to do just about anything (and also nothing) because of the service we offer.” Today Technorati currently tracks 28.4 million sites and 2 billion links, and returns results in just under one second and typically displays new posts within one minute of their being published by the author. With more than 30 employees, Technorati is a private company backed by advertising and sponsorship, providing free search and reading services to the user.

The site provides tips to bloggers about how to attract and maintain a readership, which enables creators of “user-generated content” to acquire “a sort of megaphone with which to amplify their voices and to be heard by a larger and ever-growing audience,” said Gordon. Because the audience is also the producer, a circle is created, making mass communications truly of, by and for the masses.

In the end, Technorati’s mission is to be the leading Conversation Convergence Company, what Gordon described as bringing together the growing wealth of user-generated content, in context with mainstream media, their readers, and the advertisers who want to reach them. In short: Technorati delivers what they call the converging “World LIVE Web.”