Hot Stuff - keeping track of what's cooking in the biblioblogosphere

HotStuff 2.0 is a very neat site! Here are some snippets from the about page: "HotStuff 2.0″ is an automatically updated blog developed by Dave Pattern (Library Systems Manager, University of Huddersfield, UK)...RSS feeds from over 800 library related blogs are collated on a daily basis and analysed in an attempt to discover new and/or interesting topics. Not all of the blogs have posted something new since HotStuff was launched, so the number of active blogs is lower. A daily blog post is generated using a single word that has seen a marked increase in usage over the last few days. A “Word Wheel” image shows the strength of the links between that word and other words that have also recently seen an increase in usage. This can sometimes help to put to the words into context, but mostly it’s just an excuse for some eye candy!"
The lists of library blogs HotStuff draws from are the big list from Bloglines, and the smaller (and more interesting) list of active blogs (ie. active since HotStuff launched last month).  I blushed with pride to find Knowbodies on both of those lists! Of course, it should be noted that word-frequency measures like the ubiquitous tagclouds,  sparklines and "Word Wheels" are a concession to the limitations of computers, and can't compare with proper subject cataloging for determining  what we're really talking about; word frequency is intriguing, if not scientific. The January 6 word of the day was "potato", thanks to the buzz in the library blogosphere over librarian Stan Friedman winning the Ultimate Couch Potato title for the second year in a row. But only 3 of the 7 blog posts containing the word potato that day were referring to Friedman - the other 4 referred to "potato cakes", "potato chips" (2), and "potato peel pie." As Phil Bradley pointed out in his post,  HotStuff is not only fun, but a great way to discover library blogs worth following. Below is the Word Wheel for "potato." (click on it to enlarge image)