Technorati Launches Topics

Technorati has launched a new feature on the site called "Topics." Topics pulls the best posts from the "best blogs" and lists them in a river-style format. Sean at Mashable calls it "useless". Personally I would rather they spend the time fixing the authority rankings rather than add new technology. Let’s make sure the foundation is strong before we add a new floor on the house.

From the T’rati blog: We considered a number of factors to get the seed list of blogs including Technorati Authority, frequency of posting, use of relevant tags, links to related subject matter and general topicality. With Topics, we help you discover what bloggers are writing about in Entertainment, Technology, Politics, Sports, Business, and Life.

Of course what they really mean is "… we send you what bloggers we want to link to are writing about…". This is why I like TechMeme for my tech news. I can see at a glance which stories are hot, check a variety of opinions from the a-list, the wanna be a-list and all of the others. With Topics all I see is what they feed to me.

What would make Topics stronger are feeds and listings. Allow me to grab a feed from a category, now that might be hot. And then show in the individual blog whether they are part of a topic and how to suggest a feed addition.