Obtaining the RSS feed URL: On any results page, simply click the RSS button in the browser's location bar, usually an orange or blue square icon like the one above, but tinier. In Safari, the icon simply contains the letters "RSS". A feed URL link also appears at the bottom of any results page. Look (again) for an orange RSS icon. Subscribing involves copying this URL to your aggregator of choice.

"About" vs. "any mention": Remember that Techmeme Search runs in either of two overall modes. Suppose you're searching for "eBay". In the default mode, it tries to find results about eBay by searching only the title and first few sentences for "eBay" (example results). To get results that mention eBay anywhere in the post, uncheck "Search title & summary only" (example result). The associated RSS feeds for these two alternatives preserve this searching behavior.

About Techmeme Search: Techmeme Search was introduced May 20, and demands for RSS feeds arrived (of course) on May 20. Bloggers soon came through with other helpful information. Among them was Amit Agarwal, whose post provides a link that instantly adds Techmeme Search to the Firefox or IE toolbar. Another was Louis Gray, who uses Techmeme to examine who broke (or otherwise gave early notice of) stories of enduring interest.

Well, actually, work on search was rather seriously delayed. For years, I blew it off since it always seemed a secondary concern. Techmeme was focused primarily on surfacing the newsworthy, not providing Yet Another Blog/News Search. Even Danny came to agree with me on that point.

So why now? As an increasing number of users became increasingly dependent on Techmeme, one common use case emerged: people wanted simply to recall things they'd seen on the site early. Another use is best illustrated in the "Techmeme Posts" listed in the right column of CrunchBase's Facebook company profile. These are posts about Facebook that surfaced recently on Techmeme. Listing them in reverse chronological order offers a concise list of the company's latest milestones. This shows that another great use for search is in producing a timeline of major events for any topic.

Posted headlines only, newest first: Techmeme Search returns items that have appeared as full headlines on Techmeme, in reverse chronological order. Headlines appearing only in "Discussion" are excluded. This way, Techmeme Search aims to surface only the most notable results for a query. For more exhaustive results, services like Ask Blog Search, Google News, and Topix already do a good job of returning everything that they've indexed.

Full text search isn't default: There are two overall modes of searching, depending on how "close" a result is desired. The default mode only returns matches occurring in the title or the first couple of sentences. Searching for "Yahoo" in this mode typically return stories about Yahoo. Unchecking "Search title & summary only" on the result page (or the bare bones page) enables search of the full article text. In this mode, any article simply mentioning "Yahoo" will appear.

Narrowing results by source url, author, date, and other attributes is also supported. For instance, "sourceurl:http://searchengineland.com/" returns posts only from the blog Search Engine Land (as seen here). A concise list of all the search operators involved is available through the "Advanced" link on a search results page (or again, on the bare bones page).

What's next? Search for Techmeme's sister sites are planned but not active as of today. Also on the way are RSS feeds for search results, the simplest kind of search "API".

Final note: I'm happy to report that Techmeme Search was implemented not by myself but by Techmeme's first hire, Omer Horvitz, who's also an old friend of mine. So I can now say "we" when referring to Techmeme. I'm still trying to get used to the sound of that.

Update: Some coverage around the web: TechCrunch broke the news here. Techmeme Search is bub.blicio.us and even "kills" Technorati for Mashable's Stan Shroeder. Charlie Anzman is pleased with "TechMeMe" search. Amit Agarwal provides a link that instantly adds Techmeme Search to Firefox's or IE's toolbar. Download Squad says Techmeme is now "useful to the general public". Amit Chowdhry says it's helpful for "media researchers such as myself". Susan Mernit wants RSS by tomorrow. Techmeme Search lands at Search Engine Land, and appears inside Outside the Lines. Nick Bradbury has enabled Techmeme searches inside FeedDemon. Search Engine Journal and Rev2.org weighed in. The "My Blog Posts" blog measures mentions of Indian cities with Techmeme Search. Blogcosm offers a general roundup.

The new "Firehose" feeds introduced today do just that. Any story attaining headline status on Techmeme (which exclude "Discussion" links) will appear in the feed within 5 minutes. This means well over 100 headlines per day for Techmeme Firehose, so casual news readers will want to use the Main feed (i.e. the previous, standard feed) instead.

Twitter accounts for both Main and Firehose feeds are available as well. Users of Twitter, even more than users of RSS readers, tend to favor a more immediate view of events around them, and some have complained about the "slowness" of the existing Techmeme Twitter account (which is based on the Main feed). Following Techmeme Firehose on Twitter will provide the real-time experience these users crave.

The following table summarizes all the relevant URLs:

Firehose RSS	Firehose Twitter	Main RSS	Main Twitter
Techmeme	Techmeme	Techmeme	Techmeme
WeSmirch	WeSmirch	WeSmirch	WeSmirch
memeorandum		memeorandum
Ballbug		Ballbug