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I quite often hear clients talk about how non-tech savvy their customers and prospects are. While I agree there are individuals that simply have a hard time comprehending a web interface or are just too scared to try, they make up the very small minority. If we let this small group dictate how we communicate with the larger audience we are doing the majority a great disservice. If you ran a restaurant would you stop accepting credit cards because you have a couple of customers that only pay with cash?

We also need to look at the rapid growth and adoption of Internet technologies in our every day lives. While a few years ago it could have been considered a trendy and youthful medium that is no longer the case. Most Americans are connected and use the web on a daily basis for communication, research and purchasing. If everyone were as ignorant as some like to portray this would not be the case.

Lets give our users a little more credit. After all, 74% of the U.S. population currently has Internet and uses it regularly. Instead of dropping our efforts to the lowest common denominator let’s help move everyone forward and create solutions that not only work today but also help drive business into the future.

If you are not familiar with Technorati, it is search engine specializing in the indexing of blogs. It’s true that Google also indexes blog content, but it’s results are not nearly as timely as those of Technorati. Due to the nature of blog software and the technology of ping services, Technorati is notified automatically when a blog adds a new article. This entry is then quickly indexed and made available for search.

So how can this help you? Easy, have you ever wanted to know what people are currently talking about regarding your industry or any given topic? Technorati gives you a powerful search tool for any topic. Not only that but you can search by the authority level of the blog. The authority is basically a measurement to whether the blog has high readership, commenting & inbound web links. So you basically know whether the blog in question has pull or not.

On top of that the search will also display how many mentions the term you used has been mentioned over a period of time. This gives you instant feedback to know if the topic is trending up or down.

If you haven’t used Technorati, check it out.

I follow a large number of blogs and social news services daily. There are some I have followed for years and others I lose interest in quickly. In an industry that changes so rapidly you simply have to. I have also wondered what some of the most influential people in the industry follow and read. Luckily Google Reader has reached out to some of these people and is now publicly sharing their subscriptions. I’ve just added another five news sources to my collection and we’ll see where it leads me.

Google’s Featured Reading Lists