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Sphere exited its beta testing phase with the launch of version 1.5, and several new features were put into place before its formal debut. After several months in private beta testing, which we reported on last October...

Sphere Launches Blog Search
...Sphere opened its virtual doors to the rest of the Internet this morning.

Hardware constraints during the beta period kept it limited to those early testers. Along with a new logo, the latest version of Sphere contains several new features.

On the home page, a quick view of top searches this hour and this week appear under the main search box. Also, search results can be subscribed to as a RSS feed for a user's feedreader.

Sphere also touted its Featured Blogs beta. Those can be found for 12,000+ keyword search terms covering over 500 broad topics, Sphere said.

Throughout the site, Sphere provides "community buttons" where users can suggest bloggers for content, or recommend photos, books, or podcasts related to a query from the Related Media link on the search results page.

Previously suggested items for those categories appear in those Related Media results. Those include news from a number of organizations like the New York Times, CNN, and Fox among over 50 mainstream news sources.

Some of Sphere's accomplishments have come with the help of Yahoo Web Services. Yahoo's available APIs allow developers to tap the various Yahoo content resources to build new applications.

Sphere prefaced its opening with a round of venture capital totaling $3.75 million. Business 2.0 senior writer Om Malik posted the new money came from Hearst Publishing, Trident Capital and About.com founder Scott Kurnit.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.