Category Archives: Weblogs

Reading List August 16, 2005

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How to Make Yourself Paranoid

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So I’m reading the Freakonomics blog and I come across this gem of a blog dedicated to covering the Avian Flu (could soon be) epidimic.  I’m telling you if you read a few of the posts you’ll be stocking food and water in no time.

After watching the SARS scare a couple of years ago it doesn’t take much of a leap to see what a new strain of the flu could do.  And with the ubiquity of international travel there’s no real barrier to the thing becoming a pandemic in a matter of weeks or months.

On another note, once again I’m really kind of amazed at how easy it is for someone to create a solid information source using blog technology.  When you think about it the technology really opens up all kinds of possibilities for average people to provide a "public service."

Reading List August 8, 2005

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  • Blogging As You Go Belly Up (BusinessWeek Online) – An entrepreneur starts blogging in May, just in time to chronicle his company’s demise and his impending personal bankruptcy.
  • Respond or Die (MicroPersuasion) – Steve Rubel takes the case of Google not talking to CNET and uses it as the basis for a post on why PR professionals need to respond to all media, including bloggers and citizen journalists.
  • "Search" Book Excerpt (John Battelle’s Searchblog) – This excerpt from Battelle’s book looks at how Bill Gross came to invent/develop pay-per-click advertising at GoTo.com (Overture).
  • The WiMax Imperative (Moore’s Lore) – Dana Blankenhorn on the meaning of the FCC’s ruling that the telecomm companies don’t have to lease their lines to competitors, and what wireless providers have to do to compete.
  • Indeed (A VC) – Fred Wilson’s group, Union Square Ventures, just invested in a paid job search service called Indeed (think Google Adwords for job boards).  In describing the investment he does a very good job of explaining the concept and rationale of paid job search.

Reading List August 7, 2005

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  • Web 2.0: It’s a Great Time to be an Investor (Venturepreneur Partners) – An article by a venture capitalist that explains how the Web is changing from a "medium where information is simply published and remains static, into a
    platform where applications reside and services are distributed."
  • How to Write Using Stream of Conversation (Rexblog) – "I believe those of us who try to understand and interpret what is
    taking place when social media intersect with traditional media often
    place an emphasis on the idea that the article is the beginning of a conversation. However, reading Joi’s complete post, I’m reminded that an article (or post or story) comes mid-stream in the conversation."
  • Outgrowing the Grownup (Moore’s Lore) – How Eric Schmidt might be screwing up Google.
  • Google Balances Privacy, Reach (CNET via Moore’s Lore) –  Is Google a threat to your privacy?
  • The War on Truth (A-Clue.com) – An opinion piece about the "war on truth" currently being waged by conservatives in American politics.
  • The Drawdown Lowdown (Reason Express) –  Possible scenarios for US troop reductions in Iraq.
  • The London Flypaper (Reason Express) – "Standard pro-war flypaper doctrine has all the young Muslims
    flocking to Iraq to die for Allah, not staying home and trying to blow stuff up.
    Pointing this out does not mean claiming that George Bush is to blame for the London bombing of 7/21 or 7/7,
    the straw man that Bush supporters love to toss up."
  • Up in Smoke (New York TImes Magazine) – The Freakonomics guys look at what happened to crack cocaine.
  • Ostentatious Obscurity (Reveries.com) – Owners publicize their restaurant by making it a secret; unlisted phone number, no signs, hostess that denies its existence.  Only in New York.
  • Rules of Success-The Path of Least Resistance (Blog Maverick) – Mark Cuban says that the secret to success is providing the path of least resistance, or in other words make things as easy as possible for customers, not yourself.

Reading List July 29, 2005

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Reading List July 28, 2005

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  • IceRocket’s Secret Weapon (The Post Money Value) — How saying "Thank You" is a powerful business tool.
  • Tracking is Good (A VC) — Value in targeted marketing, and how customer tracking helps.
  • Onfolio – The Buzz Process (The Post Money Value) — Blogs change the landscape for getting testimonials and paid placement.
  • Cheap Shot in a Good Cause (Moore’s Lore) — Why free trade should not be values free.
  • Becoming an Un-Person (Moore’s Lore) — The ID system in the US is broken and Dana’s experience with the local Social Security Administration office is a good example of why.
  • The Christian Paradox (Harper’s via Chewie) — On American Christians and their un-Christian behavior.
  • Wartime Dispatches (Greensboro News & Record) — Stories about soldiers in Iraq who are from Piedmont Triad area.
  • Economics of Used Books (Boing Boing) — Why Amazon.com isn’t stupid for selling used books next to new books.
  • Spin Sucks (Feld Thoughts) — “First we have to decide what the right thing to do is; then we’ll
    think about the politics.  Otherwise we’ll just confuse ourselves. — Richard Snelling”
  • Acceptable Downtime (Feld Thoughts) — Why 99.999% up time may not be enough for online service providers.  Better said would be the importance of redundancy.
  • Delta and the "Internal" Memo (The Post Money Value) — About the absurdity of the concept of an "internal" memo in a company with more than 10 employees.
  • No More AO-Hell (Jeff Jarvis) — Jeff dumps AOL after a 12 year relationship and in the process of describing the dump he gives a cool retrospective on the evolution of the internet.

Reading List July 27, 2005

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