Catching Up (and Up and Up and Up) with the Technology Bloggers
from May/June 2008
by Bonnie Azab Powell
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It’s amazing that any code or term sheets get written or any products shipped, considering how much time Silicon Valley denizens and their brothers and sisters around the U.S. devote to reading, writing, and discussing blogs. In the technology industry, the temptation is to think there are more blogs than workers, given the number of people who have two or three of the online diary-cum-communication tools going simultaneously.
But if your stereotype of a tech blogger is nerdy young Willy Webb surreptitiously typing away in his cubicle, you need to hit Delete. These days the people sharing their thoughts with the online world include Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz (blogs.sun.com/jonathan). Even the usually secretive crowd of venture capitalists, such as Mobius Venture Capital managing director Brad Feld (feld.com/blog/), now feel compelled to blog about their technology insights. Hundreds of top managers also post their ideas, opinions, and corporate updates—as do various board members.
Unnerved by all the information on who got funded and why, which new products will sink or score, what research is cool, why companies are really taking the actions they are, and what the digerati are gossiping about? This roster of the biggest and best-read independent sites—none affiliated with any corporation or major media company—is a great place for a director to start.
Ars Technica (www.arstechnica.com)
Hardware, software, and everything else techy; describes itself as covering “the art of technology.”
Perhaps the most friendly-to-newcomers blog on this list, Ars Technica is organized like an online newspaper, with clearly labeled content sections such as Business IT, News, Gear & Gadgets, and Guides. Its content is more, well, grown-up too, with a professional tone and well-considered analysis—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t slip in a few zingers. Ars claims three million monthly readers and is in the top 20 of all IT online media sites, according to Hitwise, which monitors such data. Technorati, a blog-tracking site, ranks Ars the seventh-most-popular blog in the world.
Who’s blogging Ken “Caesar” Fisher, who started the blog as a hobby while he was getting his Ph.D. in religion at Harvard. Ars is now a full-time job for him and a staff of about 15.
Boing Boing (www.boingboing.net)
General technology, science, and culture; describes itself as providing “a directory of wonderful things.”
On Boing Boing anything is fair game, as long as it’s interesting. Thanks to the blog’s four savvy curators, 99% of its snippets are, which is why more than five million people worldwide read Boing Boing every month, keeping it permanently in the Technorati top 10. If you ever find yourself facing a conference mixer with no conversational ammo in your arsenal, simply spend 15 minutes on Boing Boing. In a few hours’ worth of posts, you might come across Flickr photos of chicken dishes from around the globe, high-definition video of the Moon released by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or a discussion of an African ATM with eight languages. The site’s appeal is in its astonishing breadth and the brevity of its posts, although topics like online privacy and businesses that restrict access to websites do get explored in depth. Includes recent spin-off sites Boing Boing Gadgets (eclectic gear) and Boing Boing TV (Web video samplers of the weird and wonderful).
Who’s blogging Mark Frauenfelder (the founder), Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin, and David Pescovitz, all prolific technology journalists affiliated at one time or another with Wired magazine.
Engadget (www.engadget.com)
Gadgets and gizmos.
Engadget is constantly neck-and-neck with its rival Gizmodo for Technorati’s top slot as most popular blog, and the competition between the two can be as nasty as a pair of battling fraternities. Founded by Gizmodo editor Peter Rojas, who left when Gawker Media impresario Nick Denton wouldn’t give him an ownership stake, Engadget gets slightly more love (as measured in traffic) from gadget geeks. Each site is worth between $30 million and $50 million, say venture capitalists, and delivers a constant churn of product rumors, reviews of new consumer electronics, and other cutting-edge content. Engadget operates four sites in four languages and is a member of Weblogs Inc., a blog network acquired by America Online in 2005 for about $25 million.
Who’s blogging Rojas is now editorial director, with editor in chief Ryan Block, a former systems administrator for a software company, managing a staff of more than 20.
GigaOM (www.gigaom.com)
Start-ups, Web 2.0, broadband, telecom, and the like.
Started as a personal blog by Om Malik, a technology journalist, GigaOM has morphed into such a media empire (now officially titled Giga Omni Media) that Malik was able to quit his day job at since-folded Business 2.0 magazine. The main blog is augmented by four sub-blogs, an online video interview show (recent guests have included Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and social-networking site Ning), and a new conference arm (the NewTeeVee Web video event sold out in November). GigaOM keeps its monthly audience of 1.5 million readers informed about who has just raised venture capital, announced or released a new product (which will often be mercilessly reviewed), or changed jobs, and also analyzes technology shifts and business-model trends.
Who’s blogging Malik, who also previously worked at Red Herring magazine (disclosure: the author did too, at the same time), and more than 20 staff writers and contributors with backgrounds in print business journalism.
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How to Change the World (blog.guykawasaki.com)
Whatever Guy feels like; he calls it “a practical blog for impractical people.”
The only solo blogger on this list, Guy Kawasaki, formerly of Apple, is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and best-selling author of books including The Art of the Start. Unlike the frantic micro-entries other blogs tend to spit out every few minutes, Kawasaki’s posts are often essay-length ruminations with catchy titles such as “How to Get a Standing Ovation” and “Top 10 Lies of Venture Capitalists.” Last May he launched the user-generated rumor-reporting website Truemors.
Who’s blogging All Guy, all the time.
Silicon Alley Insider (www.alleyinsider.com)
Tech and tech business on both coasts, though it bills itself as covering “digital business, live from New York.”
Not to be confused with Silicon Valley Reporter, a defunct New York City dot-com magazine, the Insider is a newcomer to the blog scene, but with enough heavy hitters behind it to have risen quickly in the traffic rankings. The site was co-founded by former DoubleClick CEO Kevin Ryan, investor-entrepreneur Dwight Merriman, and Henry Blodget, a blogger, author, and former Merrill Lynch technology analyst who, as he puts it in his blog bio, was “keelhauled by New York’s then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in a wide-ranging complaint about conflicts of interest between the research and banking divisions of brokerage firms.” While the Insider has little competition in covering East Coast technology and tech finance, its writers are not content to stay there, often blogging about Valley, not just Alley, developments. It has also gotten a lot of blogosphere boos for its “sponsored posts,” which are basically paid ads published in the mix of blog content, although clearly labeled as such.
Who’s blogging Blodget and four reporters, two of whom once worked for Forbes.
TechCrunch (www.techcrunch.com)
Internet products and companies.
Founder Michael Arrington started out as a lawyer with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he worked as a sort of IPO coach for numerous technology companies and venture capital firms before joining a start-up and founding a few of his own. He entered the blog world late, starting TechCrunch in mid-2005, but thanks to his contacts and workaholism, the site became a kingmaker within months. When TechCrunch profiled a San Francisco start-up called Scribd in 2006, the CEO said the company got 10 calls from venture capitalists within 48 hours. More than three million people read TechCrunch monthly.
Who’s blogging Arrington, who now routinely gets to interview presidential candidates, has hired a co-editor and a staff of three reporters, as well as a CEO to oversee his burgeoning empire (conferences, job listings, and a sub-blog that covers gadgets).
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Valleywag (www.valleywag.com)
Silicon Valley gossip, both personal and professional.
One of Gawker Media’s 14 titles (others include Wonkette and the gadget blog Gizmodo), Valleywag is the New York Post of technology blogs—with a triple dose of snark and minus the political conservatism. More than 1.5 million people per month find time to keep abreast on Valleywag of developments such as the personal-bankruptcy filing of John Rogers, founder of biometrics start-up Pay by Touch, “missing after a tenure marked by what our tipster called a ‘spend big, live big, party big, girls [and] meals binge of a global scale.’” It’s a fearless equal-opportunity offender of a blog (see what it said about the founder of Craigslist).
Who’s blogging A staff of six, led by managing editor Owen Thomas, a veteran tech journalist (Business 2.0, Red Herring) and blogger since the ’90s who is more than happy to tweak his boss, Gawker Media owner Nick Denton, on the site.
VentureBeat (www.venturebeat.com)
Venture capital and early-stage companies.
In Silicon Valley, there’s intense interest in deal news large and small. It’s not just how much money you raise but whom you raise it from and on what terms, and founder Matt Marshall has the connections to get the scoop. Marshall, who previously covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News, left the paper in 2006 to launch VentureBeat as an independent company. The blog also offers job postings and a “newswire” stream dedicated exclusively to deal flow.
Who’s blogging Marshall, plus two staff reporters and invited guest contributors who include CEOs, VCs, and other industry folk.
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