There are a few good ones which I'd recommend, but you know with the Gorilla Google that it's the latest blog search, as search is what Google does best. Google has people who are constantly improving the search engines, and when it comes to its blog search, it's no different. Another great blog search engine is IceRocket, and they've been around for a while, but seem to be on the ball with blog search, as well as Twingly is newer, but worth a try, and Nexplore's blog search seems to be more visual. If you're looking for trends in social media, you might want to check out TrendPedia. Or, if you're looking for trends on Google, there is of course Google Trends.

So, I would look at Google Blog Search, Google Reader, IceRocket, Blog Search Engine (which is powered by IceRocket), and possibly a few others. There are a hand full of "real time" search engines out there lately, but I'm not quite sure about jumping on all of them, as simply there are too many. I've tried a few of them, and they seem good for searching Twitter in real time.

Google Blog Search
http://blogsearch.google.com

IceRocket
http://www.icerocket.com

Blog Search Engine
http://www.blogsearchengine.com

Twingly
http://www.twingly.com

Nexplore
http://www.nexplore.com

TrendPedia
http://www.trendpedia.com

Google Trends
http://www.google.com/trends

A few more you might want to keep your eye on below that seem to be going after this real time market:

Collecta
http://www.collecta.com

CrowdEye
http://www.crowdeye.com

Itpints
http://www.itpints.com

OneRiot
http://www.oneriot.com

Scoopler
http://www.scoopler.com

Social Mention
http://www.socialmention.com

Surchur
http://www.surchur.com

Topsy
http://www.topsy.com

TweetMeme
http://www.tweetmeme.com

Yauba
http://www.yauba.com

Here are some other aggregators of news and blogs:

Addictomatic
http://www.addictomatic.com

All Top
http://alltop.com

Newser
http://www.newser.com

Newsified
http://newsified.com

Pop URLs
http://popurls.com

Tech News
http://www.technewsfetcher.com

Examiner
http://www.examiner.com

Now Public
http://www.nowpublic.com

Outside.in
http://outside.in

Google Blogs is very good http://blogsearch.google.ca. They usually have my content up and available less than an hour after I ping them.

I have also been experimenting with Lazyfeed http://Lazyfeed.com. Though it doesn't purport to be an extensive blog index it gives real time keyword results. One other interesting thing it does is to watch your twitter stream and suggest blog topics and articles that relate to it. I blogged about it here http://wdawe.com/index.php/lazyfeed-for-people-too-lazy-to-find-blo?blog=1

I like to use Google Blog Search if I'm searching for things that may have been discussed in Blogs. However if I'm searching for a particular type of blog I tend to ask around to people who share similar interests and may know of a blog that covers the specific topic I'm interested in.