New Blog Search Engine

I took a new blog search tool called Sphere for a little spin this morning and found it useful. On the upside, it has very clean simple interface. You initiate searches in a Google-like search box. Likewise, the results page is clean and offers plain-English options for refining your search by time (last hour, last week, or a custom range), relevance, and language. This would be a good site for less sophisticated users. Here's a very informal look at how it stacked up against two other popular blog search engines, Technorati and Feedster.

I started with Sphere and searched for items within the last 12 hours on yesterday's Vista delay announcement. The search generated four items.

A similar search on Technorati produced six items. Clearly, the interface was more cluttered. Also, I was a little annoyed when I accidentally started reading the sponsored links (They're embedded in the results and my middle-aged eyes had to squint to see that these were sponsored.)

A search on Feedster produced plenty of items, including one for the TV show "Sopranos." Narrowing the results by timeframe required a trip to advanced options and reading a bunch of instructions, something I avoid whenever possible. On the upside, the sponsored links are on the side of the page and easy to avoid.