Technorati

File:Technorati (logo).png
URL	technorati.com
Type of site	blog search engine
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Dave Sifry
Created by	Dave Sifry
Launched	November 2002[1]
Alexa rank	1,351 (June 2012[update])[2]
Current status	active

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. By June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.^[3] The name Technorati is a blend of the words technology and literati, which invokes the notion of technological intelligence or intellectualism.

Technorati was founded by Dave Sifry, with its headquarters in San Francisco, California, USA. Tantek Çelik was the site's Chief Technologist.

Technorati uses and contributes to open source software. Technorati has an active software developer community, many of them from open-source culture. Sifry is a major open-source advocate and was a founder of LinuxCare and later of Wi-Fi access point software developer Sputnik. Technorati includes a public developers' wiki, where developers and contributors collaborate, also various open APIs.

The site won the SXSW 2006 awards for Best Technical Achievement and Best of Show.^[4] It was nominated for a 2006 Webby Award for Best Practices, but lost to Flickr and Google Maps.^[5] Technorati was recognized as one of the “2010 Hottest San Francisco Companies” by Lead411.^[6]

Technology[link]

Technorati looks at tags that authors have placed on their websites. These tags help categorize search results, with recent results coming first^{[citation needed]}.

Technorati rates each blog's "authority," the number of unique blogs linking to the blog over the previous six months.

Reception[link]

In February 2006, Debi Jones pointed out that Technorati's "State of the Blogosphere" postings, which then claimed to track 27.7 million blogs, did not take into account MySpace blogs, of which she said that there were 56 million. As a result, she said that the utility of Technorati as a gauge of blog popularity was questionable.^[7] However, by March 2006, Aaron Brazell pointed out that Technorati had started tracking MySpace blogs.^[8]

In May 2006, Technorati teamed up with the PR agency Edelman. The deal earned a lot of criticism, both on principle as a result of Edelman's 2006 fake blog scandals. Edelman and Technorati officially ended the deal in December 2006. That month, Oliver Reichenstein pointed out that the so-called "State of the Blogosphere" was more of a PR-tool and money maker for Edelman and Technorati than a reliable source, explaining in particular: a) why Technorati/Edelman's claim that "31% of the blogs are written in Japanese" was "bogus", and b) where the financial profit for the involved parties was in this.^[9]

In May 2007, Andrew Orlowski, writing for the tech tabloid The Register, criticized Technorati's May 2007 redesign. He suggested that Technorati had decided to focus more on returning image thumbnails rather than blog results. He also claimed that Technorati never quite worked correctly in the past and that the alleged refocus was "a tacit admission that it's given up on its original mission".^[10]

In August 2008, Technorati acquired the online magazine, Blogcritics, for an undisclosed sum of money. As a result, Blogcritic's founders - publisher Eric Olsen and technical director Phillip Winn - became full-time Technorati employees.^[11] One of the first collaborative ventures of the two entities was for Blogcritics writers to begin writing descriptions of Technorati tags.^[12]

In April 2009, Blogcritics underwent a complete site redesign^[13] and switched content management systems.

In 2009, Technorati decided to stop indexing blogs and sites in languages other than English in order to focus only on the English-language blogosphere. As a result, thousands of sites in various languages are no longer rated by the Technorati service.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Technorati Home Page
• Technorati's own blog
• Technorati management team official page, reference for much of the above
• Giga OM's entry on the end of the Technorati-Edelman deal
• Technorati's 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012)

Sean Plott
Sean "Day[9]" Plott
Born	(1986-06-27) June 27, 1986 (age 25) Leawood, Kansas
Residence	Los Angeles, CA
Nationality	American
Other names	"Day[9]", "Day[j]"
Occupation	Commentator, Host, Netcaster, Pro-gamer
Relatives	Nicolas Tasteless Plott
Website
www.day9.tv

Sean Plott (born June 27, 1986), more commonly known by his online alias Day[9], is an e-sports commentator for StarCraft II and a former professional StarCraft: Brood War player, known for his daily netcasts. Plott qualified for the World Cyber Games in 2004, 2005 and 2006 and won the 2007 Pan-American tournament. He qualified for the American finals an additional three times and was recognized as the PC Gamer gamer of the year in 2010.^[1][2] He regularly appears as a commentator at StarCraft tournaments worldwide, including Blizzcon in 2010 and 2011, the Major League Gaming professional circuit, Dreamhack and the Team Liquid Star League. In 2011, Plott was recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 in Entertainment.^[3]

Biography[link]

Plott grew up in Leawood, Kansas, where he attended Rockhurst High School. During this time, he and his brother Nicholas "Tasteless" Plott, now a professional commentator with GOM.TV in Korea, began playing Starcraft: Brood War.^[4] After graduating high school, he attended Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, where he would graduate with an undergraduate degree in mathematics. After college, Sean would attend the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and in May 2011, earn a masters degree in interactive media.^[4] On the Day[9] Daily on May 11, 2011, he announced that he would be pursuing Starcraft II full time, however whether he meant commentating full time, or playing competitively was not clear. On May 31, 2011, during an appearance on the web show State of the Game, Plott announced that he intends to eventually stream himself laddering in StarCraft II, as soon as he is not "embarrassingly terrible".

Day[9]TV[link]

Started in 2009, the Day[9] Daily is a daily webshow based around analyzing professional Starcraft games under the tagline: "Be a Better Gamer". Initially, the Daily was a webcast focused on high level Starcraft: Brood War play; however, with the release of the Starcraft II beta, the focus of the show shifted away from Starcraft: Brood War and became fully centered on Starcraft II. The Daily currently presents itself as an edutainment webcast in which Day[9] breaks down pro-level replays of Starcraft II with the more-than-occasional nerdy joke or reference sprinkled in. The show not only helps both new and experienced Starcraft players understand the game better, but also showcases hilarious and deliberately crazy games once a week on the "Funday Monday" episode."^[5][6]

Recurring themes[link]

The Day[9] Daily has had various themes since its first episode.

• Funday Monday, where Plott accepts submissions of games played by the community that were played under various restrictions designed by Plott to make the games more entertaining/challenging. These broadcasts also typicaly include a great deal of story telling
• Newbie Tuesday, where Plott analyzes replays from lower-level players
• Friendsday Wednesday, where Plott invites a StarCraft II personality for in-depth analysis of his replays. (This theme has become less frequent since its introduction.)

Additional casts[link]

Day[9] also has recently taken up streaming other games such as Diablo III, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, accompanying his gameplay experience with commentary.

Daily #404 was a special daily, featuring an empty chair and the text Daily not found. The purpose of this was to participate in the SOPA blackout of January 18, 2012.

Professional gaming career[link]

StarCraft: Brood War[link]

Plott was a highly rated player in the western Starcraft scene, participating in many tournaments around the U.S. Playing as zerg, Plott's first major results came in 2004 when he was able to take 2nd place in the World Cyber Games (WCG) USA tournament. Plott then went on to represent the U.S. at the WCG Grand Finals where he finished in the top 16.

Plott placed 1st at the WCG USA tournament in 2005 and 2nd in 2006. As a frequent poster on the TeamLiquid Starcraft strategy forums he became a staple of the community with his willingness to share his deep understanding of the game.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty[link]

Plott continued to make the daily a focus of his life and career, but, unlike with Brood War, he made his role in the community that of a caster. Since the advent of StarCraft II, he has become the most popular StarCraft II caster outside of South Korea, especially in North America. He is a staple member of the casting team for the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit, arguably the most popular North American e-sports tournament franchise featuring StarCraft II, as well as a frequent caster of the international Intel Extreme Masters Cup. He is also very widely respected as a pundit of the game and its ever-changing strategic nuances, sharing his knowledge regularly on the daily. In addition, Plott is one of the stars of State of the Game, where he discusses notable current events within the StarCraft community with other highly regarded members of the community, such as the show's caster J. P. "itmeJP" McDaniel, co-stars Geoff "iNcontroL" Robinson, Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, Tyler "Tyler" Wasieleski, and various guest stars who also tend to be important contributors and/or figures in the StarCraft community. Plott has not played StarCraft II professionally since 2010's HDH Invitational, and for the time being focuses on his daily show and commentates at various conventions and tournaments. Plott has shown interest in returning to competitive play but has made no public appearances as a player.

Casting[link]

Plott speaking at PAX 2011

Day[9]'s StarCraft II career has had a strong focus on casting. He has been a key caster on the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit, at the seasonal DreamHack LAN, at the Intel Extreme Masters' Cup, the North American Star League, and numerous other tournaments small and large. Most notably, Day[9] was a primary caster of the BlizzCon 2011 tournament, from the regional invitational qualifiers to the finals at BlizzCon 2011. He has also cast a number tournaments he himself co-organized, like the "After Hours Gaming League" and the SC2 Beta tournament, "King of the Beta."

In 2012, Day9 appeared as a caster for the Red Bull LAN and MLG's Winter Championship.

After Hours Gaming League[link]

The After Hours Gaming League is a yearly gaming competition featuring major technology companies. In the StarCraft II tournament, the teams play a series of best of five matches. The winning team wins $5000 to the charity of their choice. Season one ran during fall 2011 and team Microsoft was the winner, selecting Amnesty International to receive the prize money. Season two started in January 2012, ending in April with the crowning of team Epic Systems as champions. The medical software developer selected Doctors Without Borders as the recipients of the $5000 prize. The inaugural League of Legends tournament began in January 2012 featuring 11 teams.

See also[link]

• Electronic sports
• Starcraft 2
• Husky (commentator)
• HD (commentator)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Day[9]'s official website
• The Day[9] Daily on Twitch.tv
• Day[9]'s main page and episode archive on blip.tv
• Episode archive for Australian viewers
• A popular fan site with textual summaries of each daily episode
• After Hours Gaming League official site