Google Blog Search - Not So Fresh

This is a snapshot of four stories that are currently ranked at the top on Google Blog Search as of now (October 6, 2008).

In case the fonts in the above screenshot appear small, let me give a quick summary – the stories are about Nokia’s new touch-screen phone, Steve Jobs’ heart attack, Sony’s new e-book reader and some commercial tool for converting video to audio.

Now compare the time when the same stories hit Techmeme home page.

• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic hands-on  (published October 2)
• Apple Denies Steve Jobs Heart Attack Report (published October 1)
• Sony’s PRS-700 Reader Adds Touchscreen (published October 2)
• The fourth story obviously didn’t make it to Techmeme.

The Google Blog says that this new home page of Google BlogSearch lets you "browse and discover the most interesting stories in the blogosphere". That may be the ultimate goal but frankly, the product is nowhere close yet.

Another point: Google BlogSearch doesn’t offer RSS feeds and the site is written in some complex JavaScript so you no option but to visit the page manually.