Wired has an interesting article - Technorati: A New Public Utility - that touches on the differences between Google and Technorati, while affirming the rising importance of blog aggregators like Technorati to track blogs.

If you think about it, Technorati has become a public utility on a global scale.

While Google didn’t invent the internet, it made it easier to navigate by organizing billions of web pages. Today there are about 12 million blogs, with 10 new ones created every second. Since March, the number of posts has increased 40 percent a month, from about 350,000 a day to 850,000 a day…

…In contrast, Technorati sees the internet as a stream of conversations. This makes it much more immediate. Google requires two to three weeks to input a site into its search engine. (Although it does post frequently updated content from news sites.)

For Technorati, it takes about seven minutes to index a post. Those who use complementary tools like LiveJournal, AOL Journals and Blogger can expect their posts to pop up on Technorati almost instantaneously.

“With Technorati, you know what is being said, when it is said, and who is saying it,” (Techorati founder David) Sifry said. You can track the metamorphosis of an idea, not only who commented on it last but who came up with it first.

Now, if only I could get it to work reliably and quickly. After all, you can’t truly earn that ‘utility’ comparision until you’re able to keep the information flowing through the currents 24/7, no?