Google Blog Search has a new homepage that makes it look more like a memetracker. Rather than being a pure search page, the service now resembles the Google News page, where search is combined with content aggregation.
The new Blog Search homepage is very similar to Techmeme and Memeorandum. Top stories relating to a wide variety of currently popular issues ranging from politics to business and technology to entertainment are grouped together and then categorised into one of the 12 
categories:
- Top Stories
- Politics
- US
- World
- Business
- Technology
- Video Games
- Science
- Entertainment
- Movies
- Television
- Sports
Memetrackers usually get breaking news stories and emerging trends on blogs much before other major sources such as newspapers, television or radio. Most memetrackers automatically monitor several news sources at the same time, identifying, pooling and analysing different blog posts and then grouping them together, thus allowing users to vote for or read about topics that are of interest to them.
Google’s new technology may help Google News identify interesting stories that run across several websites. However, it is not clear whether Google Blog Search is more efficient and informative than other memetrackers. That will ultimately depend on the frequency with which updates are conducted and the sources they will be tracking.
While Google is believed to have a wider network than other memetrackers, spam posts have already managed to enter their homepage, which is obviously not a good sign. The search giant will have to work hard if they wish to overtake the already established leader in the business, Techmeme. Last year the New York Times tried to do so, but didn’t quite succeed.
