By Mark Evans
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Another much-anticipated Web 2.0 beta has been released: Sphere, which has an ambitious goal of bumping aside blog search rivals such as Technorati and Mark Cuban’s IceRocket. So what is Sphere’s secret sauce? Apparently, relevance rather than the most recent posts. My first take is it’s intriguing but there’s plenty of room for improvement if Sphere wants to become a serious blog search player. Because the focus is on relevance, the search results can be hit and miss. The top result, for example, could be several days old, which, at first, seems strange. Then again, Sphere has a lofty goal of producing better results rather than what someone fired off five minutes ago. I think Sphere needs to improve its search results and demonstrate why they are superior to Technorati, et al.
We Say: Much like the Flock is trying to find a niche in the crowded browser market, Sphere has high hopes of establishing a foothold in the competitive blog search arena. Unlike Flock, Sphere’s beta is pretty much baked but like Flock, Sphere needs to get a lot better to be taken seriously.
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For me Technorati is the best. The problem I have is how can Sphere focus is on relevance? My blog and many others are eclectic, the focus of the blog is what my last post was about and then I’m on to something else. Sure there are some common themes but I guess we will have to see if they are found and identified from the noise.