On a slow news weekend it took just one request from Frenchmen Loic Le Meur to set the tubes a blaze.  He wanted to see Twitter search results by authority (number of followers). While this certainly raises some questions, its not a terrible thing to request. In fact I was also curious what the search results might look like. 

So I asked our special projects guru Ryan Sit to work something up. The result is an interesting mashup,  results based on rank and time posted with both being displayed side by side. Give it a test drive yourself here. 

Let’s start with the original reason Loic requested the feature, ego searching his Le Web event.

Already we can begin to see some of the shortcomings, at least for this topic. When ordered by rank the first results are dominated by Robert Scoble and Loic himself. Once you scroll down a bit though you begin to see some other nice results based on rank. The right side displays most recent twits and also looks to contain some nice results too.

Try it with a few other topics:

• iPhone
• Xmas
• Your Name

Tomorrow we can add a few more tweeks to the site and welcome your feedback. I’ll also have Ryan share some of the ways he has done this using the Twitter API.

Do Twitter results based on authority do anything for you?

My favorite Frenchmen is causing a stir once again. Click through to lala to see what a Loic run web would look like.

(Photo by: Joi)

Google just slapped a coat of paint on their Blog Search service today. The enhancements group stories together and headline what appears to be considered the “leading source” for the story.  They also include a nice chart that displays recent activity (number of blogs covering it).

Myself, I’m already a fan of Google Blog Search, in most cases its the best resource for breaking and trend related stories. These new additions are nice but certainly don’t give me many “ah ha” moments.

Of course with something like this, the community is talking “Techmeme Killer”. I thought about it for a moment, but quickly came to the conclusion that this is no Techmeme Killer. Also a few minutes later I remembered I hate the old “______ Killer” meme itself. Its so speculative and quickly thrown out these days. Techmeme serves a narrow but influential audience, they know how to use multiple tools to supplement search and Techmeme will continue to be one of those.

In the spirt of the mob though I did come up with a few true TecheMeme Killers.

Warning: May contain outlandish future talk and if used improperly, damage the time line.

The TechMeme Killers

• Gabe’s Shyness: After a billing mix up with his host, Techmeme is taken offline. Too shy to call support, Gabe just says “meh” and takes a job with Google. When Microsoft acquires Google in 2012, Gabe’s stock makes him a rich man. 
• The TechCrunch Payment is Late: After TechCrunch continues to miss payments to Techmeme, the site is unable to go on. The service shuts down, it’s dead pool post on TechCrunch receives over 500 comments, 400 of which are from Gabe. 
• FeedBurner: After years of Gabe pounding the keyboard and saying “Feedburner, your slow pings are killing me” it literally does. 
• The Other Woman: Gabe gets a girlfriend and is shocked to find out playing with her is more enjoyable than playing with RSS. 

Thanks to this Techmeme thread I’m just confused. Is it like Facebook or Netvibes? I’m really hoping see one more thread extension here comparing SportsFanLive to Twitter.

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