What is Technorati?

If you're one of the tens of thousands of people who use Technorati every day, you'll notice that most of our changes (on the new beta site so far have been under the hood. Changes to the body have been minimal. As a result, we've been scratching our heads because we've never explained exactly what Technorati *is*. For that matter, we've never explained much about what a "cosmos" is, either -- even though that's what Technorati finds in its searches.

So I thought it would make sense to ask you what Technorati is. Is it a search engine for blogs? A conversation engine? Or something else again?

Same with "cosmos." Is there a more self-explanatory word for what Technorati finds? Or a better way to say exactly what "cosmos" means?

Let us know. We'd like to hear from you. Thanks!