Tim Yang via email: Could I make a request? A couple weeks ago I was reading about your study on blog search tools. What did you make of it? I'm really interested to know which is the best and for what each of them is good for.
Randy: Tim was referring to my It's about Finding New Links study. Beyond the final numbers, this is my in-depth (or very shallow) analysis.
I found most of the links first with Bloglines. Bloglines is really the best at finding new links, except when it goes AWL for days at a time. PubSub finds a lot of links too, but 12 hours after I first find them with Bloglines. When Bloglines is experiencing those sick days, I turn to IceRocket for timely links (you can translate that to 2nd best). Blogpulse finds less real links and a lot of blog SPAM. Technorati finds few links these days and usually I find those links days after Bloglines, but sometimes weeks and even months. Feedster finds few real links and mostly blog SPAM. I didn't find anything at all with Blogdigger.
