Technorati has undergone many changes over the past few years. The company began as a blog search engine but has transitioned into a social media ad network. While the blog search engine is still part of the company, the ad network side plays a much larger role.

Do you prefer Technorati as a blog search engine or as an ad network? Let us know.

More recently, the company announced that it was making internal management changes. Richard Jalichandra, who has led Technorati for 3 and a half years, is now the executive chairman. Taking his place as CEO is Shani Higgins, the former SVP and GM of the company’s media unit.

“From the Richard Jalichandra perspective, the moving to an executive chairman role really allows him to focus on what he loves to do… which is the M&A component and being sort of the outward voice for the company,” Higgins told WebProNews.

On her new role, she said, “It’s a natural succession for me to sort of move into more of an exterior [role] as well as continuing to maintain the interior role I’ve been playing.”

Technorati also brought on Abderrezak Kamel as its new CTO, which Higgins called a “critical addition to our team.” She added that he would be very instrumental in moving the company forward.

According to her, these changes would help bring more value to publishers, advertisers, and the audiences in between them. She said, “Being a network to support and represent them in the marketplace is a huge value that we felt that we could deliver upon and have over the past 3 and a half years.”

In recent years, Technorati has received criticism for its transition and has even been called dead by some. However, it doubled its revenue and became profitable last year.

Moving forward, Higgins said Technorati would work to produce products that offer more ROI and engagement for publishers, advertisers, and their audiences. These products hope to start conversations and allow for easy participation. She pointed out that Technorati doesn’t want to become just a destination website, but, instead, it wants to provide value to users both on and off its site.

“You’ll see us look more at ways in which we can utilize the website, but I think the business is how we’ve evolved… the value we can bring to this market, not just our website,” she said.

Do you think these recent changes will be effective for Technorati?