Technorati hunting party

I had looked at Technorati a few times since this training commenced but, to be honest, I found their website really unappealing and too jam-packed with information. I suppose the more one uses it, the easier it would get, but it seems to me that most of the stories are very US-oriented. There's no arguing the influence of America on the world (especially the West) but I wonder how relevant Technorati is to many people in the world? I also suppose I am only looking at the top and up-and-coming major stories, so overall it could be a useful tool. Definitely need to spend more time on it. The amazing thing is that, despite Technorati's claims to how wonderful they are, I don't recall ever having heard of them before! I find that amazing as I certainly try to keep abreast of new technology and the web, and I had heard of many of the other sites we have been using.

I signed up (which was easy) and 'claimed' my blog (took me a few minutes to locate the right spot to do this, although once I found it, it was relatively simple to claim - did require OpenID access though) although I am not expecting too much! I also installed a widget on my blog. First I tried the Top Searches widget but that seemed to bring up some very odd searches, so I removed it and replaced it with a Top Tags one.

The recommended search on "bookmobile": I got exactly the same number of hits (791) for both the standard and advanced searches. Was that what was supposed to happen? Same for the search on "nswpln2008" (6 hits). Might need some help on this!