32 months later: Techmeme adds search

Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera somewhat humorously recounts the events leading to the addition of the site's search tool:

Hours after Techmeme launched in 2005, search uberblogger Danny Sullivan remarked "there's no keyword search facility that I can see. I want that, and soon!" Nobody wants to let Danny down, so I got right to work and 32 months later, a search box now sits atop the site.

Well, actually, work on search was rather seriously delayed...Techmeme was focused primarily on surfacing the newsworthy, not providing Yet Another Blog/News Search.

As an increasing number of users became increasingly dependent on Techmeme, one common use case emerged: people wanted simply to recall things they'd seen on the site early.

At TechCrunch, Michael Arrington describes the new search feature:

Results are returned only for items that have appeared as full headlines on Techmeme, in reverse chronological order. Headlines appearing only in "Discussion" are excluded. And basic search only returns results that appear in the title of the item or in the first couple of sentences.

There is also an advanced search feature, however, that allows for full text search of the underlying blog post or article. Users can also search just by date, author, source, etc.

With the addition of the search tool, Brad Linder of Download Squad finally sees Techmeme as broadly useful:

...Techmeme has historically done a pretty lousy job of telling you yesterday's big stories. Or last week's. Or last years. Because the site has lacked any sort of a search function...

The launch of the search tool actually makes Techmeme a site worth visiting if you're not just trying to figure out which stories Download Squad, TechCrunch, CNET, ReadWriteWeb, and Engadget are covering today.

Stan Schroeder of Mashable decides he doesn't have to visit Technorati anymore:

...Techmeme search effectively kills the last big reason I've had to visit Technorati. Techmeme now has it all. Tracking news on blogs? Check. Following conversations/trackbacks? Check....Top list of blogs, if you care for that sort of thing? Check. And now there's search, which has lately been the only reason why I'd go to Technorati - to quickly search what the blogosphere has been saying about a topic.

And he predicts:

...with Technorati's track record of weird updates or just plain old stagnation, in a year or two it might find itself overrun by Techmeme.