(Cross posted from my other blog)

My favorite company these days, Lijit, has a new feature. They actually scooped me on this by announcing the Blog Explorer on their blog while I was driving back from work. Earlier today, I noticed a new button at the bottom of my Lijit Wijit, and sure enough, it brought up the network graph below

(Click for larger image)

From the Lijit blog

The three sections around the center blog show how the blogs are related.

Blogs in the green zone at the top are friends with each other; they list each other on their blogrolls.

Blogs in the blue zone to the right are on the blogroll of the center blog, but not vice versa.

Blogs in the orange zone at the left are blogs that list the center blog in their blogrolls, but the center blog doesn’t list them. They are fans of the center blog.

Below the center blog is a detail box showing the URL of the blog, and accounts that the blog owner has on other services.

There are still some limitations, but it’s a cool new feature, and for someone who is a sucker for network graphs, just right. It as definitely interesting to see how my network shapes out. It also has a similar look and feel as the Digg labs visualizations. I strongly encourage people to use Lijit if they can. It really brings together the concepts of tacit trust, the social graph, and search algorithms in a way that makes total sense to me. Already it is my default search engine via the Firefox searchbar

In other Lijit news, you can now skin your wijit.

There is one area I do not agree with the folks at Lijit, and that is on Robert Scoble. Scoble chose Mahalo and Techmeme as examples is his now infamous, and rather simplistic video series on search. I honestly think that Lijit is what he should have talked about. It does not preclude algorithms and incorporates the social graph, especially now that it has Facebook integration.

… and no I am not talking about Lijit, just because I want an iPhone

Further reading
Better search with Lijit