CT Biz Blogs

The post for today in the 20 blog types marathon is the debate. Here’s what Darren Rowse at Problogger has to say about this type of post in the article about battling bloggers block that started it all.

Debates do well on blogs and can [be] either in an organised fashion between two people, between a blogger and ‘all comers’ or even between a blogger and… themselves (try it - argue both for and against a topic in one post - you can end up with a pretty balanced post).

I could find a debating buddy, or even debate myself, but that takes time, and thought. Technology to the rescue once more! Why try to think about the pros and cons of an idea or issue, when you can find a search engine to do it for you?

There is a new blog search engine called Opinmind (”Opin” as in “opinion”). It differs from other search engines in that, instead of merely returning a list of search results, it returns a page sorted into positive and negative comments as expressed by bloggers. In other words, it brings you the blogosphere debating itself.

Here is a screen shot of the search I did on “blogging.” You can click on the image for a larger version.

Here are links to the searches I did, if you want to see for yourself (warning: this is the internet, so you might see some less-than-businesslike language).

• Blogging

• Trigonometry

• Firefox

As the Opinmind FAQs say:

Opinmind is a search engine with a twist. We scour the web for the opinions expressed by people on anything and everything. We find what people like and don’t like. We find people’s views on politics and current events. We also find what people think about products, brands, and services. You don’t have to be an expert to be listed in our results. All you need is a blog and an opinion.

Tip to bloggers: you can submit your blog for inclusion.

The quality of the opinions varies wildly, but Opinmind is still new, and it’ll be interesting to see how this develops. I think this is a great idea, though! Anyone want to debate me on that?