Searching for Order in the Blogosphere

Sphere, on the other hand, goes a few steps further -- analyzing and giving weight to the actual words in each blog posting, to the length and frequency of posts to a blog, and to how often the individual blogger writes about the subject being queried.

"We are not as dependent on links, " Conrad said. "That is a big differentiator for us."

It's nice to know they're all exploring ways to mathematically predict relevance and quality among the mind-boggling number of postings, so eventually they will help us find more relevant, savvy commentary. But that's only half the battle. There's also the challenge of presenting entries from different blogs in simple, readable ways.

Most of these sites are experimenting with blog-browsing mechanisms, most of which still feel too random to be satisfying. But I expect the experiments will one day yield a breakthrough on par with Google's using links as popularity meters.

I like the up-to-the-minute lists of most-popular blog searches -- providing a quick way to see popular postings on the day's hot topics. At Technorati yesterday, one of the top three queries was for "Lance Bass," the 'N Sync singer who told People magazine he was gay. "I like him even more now, " wrote a blogger on LiveJournal, deemed by Technorati's link-counters to be the most popular blog commenting on Bass at the moment I stopped by.

Sphere and Technorati also are partnering with traditional news sites, adding buttons to news articles that allow readers to quickly find blog commentary related to those articles. The link-focused Technorati shows only blogs that have linked to the specific news story. Sphere, by contrast, analyzes the news story and then links to all blogs that touch on the same subject matter, even if there's no direct link to the story.

To see examples, go to any news story on washingtonpost.com and you'll find a Technorati link under the heading "Who's Blogging." Over at Time magazine's Web site ( http://www.time.com ), news stories include a Sphere button with a link to "related blogs."

Those sorts of relationships are the ones we need to watch.

"I think the blogosphere and traditional media can be a very powerful couple if they can figure out how to dance together," Conrad said.

Leslie Walker welcomes e-mail atleslie@lesliewalker.com.