Thing 3: Explore Technorati

So now I've read a lot about the Blogosphere and searching blogs. My biggest "worry" about blogs as sources is proving authoritative content. (From my reading/studying it doesn't look like I'm alone.)

I searched for "Arthurian Legend" because I fell in love with King Arthur around 4 years of age and every major research project (for which I could choose the topic) I have ever done in my life has centered around the Arthurian Legend in some way. So I looked at the results and the first thing I noticed about my search results in Technorati is that it lists an authority ranking.

I found two great blogs that I plan to continue visiting but they had authority rankings of 20 something. Even worse (I thought) the ones I rejected as not pertinent had authority rankings of 180 something.

Next step: explore Technorati's use of the term authority. Good news, the lower the authority ranking number the higher the authority of a particular blog. This means that the numbers correlate with my opinion (as far as I could gather one quickly). However, Technorati creates their authority ranking by using the number of other blogs that link to a rated blog within the last 6 months. So now I'm back to how authoritative can this be? Just because it's popular does that mean it's accurate?

At least Technorati does mention including source material in its discussion of authority ranking: "The best way to increase your Technorati Authority is to write things that are interesting to other bloggers so they'll link to you. Linking to source material when you blog is also a great way to engage in conversation and help others find what you find interesting." [Bold text my emphasis not Technorati's.]

So while I trust my judgement to find relevant and good discussion material on the Arthurian Legend in blogs, how do I know I'm getting good information on Asian Folklore concerning the Rabbit on the Moon? I read a story as a child about the Rabbit on the Moon, but have little recall of its content. I used this search term and got very few hits only one of which even mentioned the Asian Story. So no comparative data yet. I'll pick another topic I know little about and see what I can discover about my comfort in finding usable material.

more later........