blogs

Late last night Jussi Laakkonen (CEO of Everyplay) wrote an excellent blog entry on how to tap into + digest + learn from multiple sources of information, i.e. "drinking from a fire hydrant". Highly useful stuff, especially if you happen to have something to do with the games industry. Go read it:

http://jussilaakkonen.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/read-read-read-how-to-sur...

It seems that others also find this very useful:

http://halinen.net/blog/?p=79

.. while writing this I realized that I have been blogging about blog and online sources of information that I follow, but have rarely mentioned any stuff in other formats/media. So here's a few:

http://www.kenradio.com/
World Technology Roundup from Kenradio and Ken Rutkowski. I have been listening to this show for years as a podcast. Auto-download it to your iPhone and play it on your way to the office = good stuff. Here's the link to their RSS podcast feed directly:

http://www.kenradio.com/rss.php

http://www.economist.com/
The Economist. Almost the only print paper (+ their online media) that I do follow. Usually high quality stuff with a broad perspective.

http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/
Harvard Business Review. This publication has contributed a lot to my "managerial thinking" over the years. Includes the latest research and good thinking papers + articles on a variety of topics. And they do apply to startups as well, most of the time anyways.

http://www.johnmauldin.com/
I subscribe to John Mauldin's newsletter and try to follow his stuff. Insightful analysis and views on the economy and business fundamentals. John also has a list up of the sources he reads here:
http://www.johnmauldin.com/information.html

Perhaps one more thing I should mention: I don't "read the news" every day. Since it tends to take up so much time (even if you skim like hell); I usually check the feeds and the news every two days or so. Naturally I maintain a whole bunch of Google Alerts that inform me right away when something I don't want to miss hits the Google Radar.

There are not that many blogs that any Nordic VCs would write. Can't think of any actually (at least not any good ones have hit my radar..). Until now of course:

http://vcperspectives.com/wordpress/

VC Perspectives is a newish (been around about as long as this blog) VC blog written by Daniel, Fredrik and Stefan of Creandum (the VC behind such companies as Spotify and Videoplaza for example).

The blog describes itself as:

"This is a blog for everyone interested in entrepreneurs, start-ups and venture capital, primarily with a Nordic focus. The idea is to provide insights, comments, and discussions about the Nordic entrepreneurial scene from a venture capital perspective."

I recently had a chat with Daniel Blomquist about the blog and what they are trying to achieve. It is brave and ambitious to bring more transparency to the VC process and "the VC world". Things sometimes seem to be pretty "hush-hush" and quite secretive for no apparent reason. The blog's writers seem to agree with the point of view that more transparency and honest information in how the whole scene works and operates is something that only adds to value for everyone and increases the chances of success.

As an example: I have seen a total of zero news over the years regarding VCs and entrepreneurs jointly telling a success story; for example a successful exit. Many times people think of the Entrepreneurs and the VCs as two separate camps that are somehow opponents to each other. While there might be a little truth in that if you are talking about stuff like negotiating deal terms etc - even at a situation like that it is more about finding some common guidelines and terms that work for and motivate both parties so that they can achieve success together..

Many VCs are former (or current) entrepreneurs (not nearly all of them, but many of the best ones, most successful ones, are), and they are really there in the marketplace to achieve the same end result as entrepreneurs; to build great companies and produce great success stories.

Therefor would it really be that far fetched to see even one single press release made jointly by the entrepreneur team and the VCs announcing a successful exit from a really great company they have built together and sharing the story and insight behind that? I haven't seen any of those kinds of stories around, and would certainly be interested in hearing them.

The VC perspectives blog is almost alone in the Nordic region taking on the challenge of talking more about these topics and showing the world from their point of view. That alone is worth my support and I would love to see them reach the same kind of quality and insight as many US and UK -based VC blogs have at the moment. I listed some of those blogs in my old blog post here.

Some particularly good picks are:

http://lsvp.wordpress.com/
http://www.avc.com/
http://www.localglo.be/
http://www.theequitykicker.com/
http://www.ventureblog.com/
http://sapventures.typepad.com/
http://www.feld.com/wp/
http://brotman.blogs.com/vcball/

So!, Go read VC Perspectives and post some comments there, be active and tell them what you would like to hear about the VC world. I think they would greatly appreciate that.

TechCrunch US just published a blog entry about Fruugo that refers this blog and me personally:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/05/is-stealth-startup-fruugo-stumbling...

As did ArcticStartup:

http://www.arcticstartup.com/rumors-circling-around-fruugo/

Looks like the gossip is heating around Fruugo. Interesting to see if they will just keep it cool, or possibly get engaged in the dialogue and conversations now. Some may claim that this is what they have planned all along: to be super quiet about things, and ensure more attention that way. At least they are getting attention, for better or worse? Is anybody's guess at this point.

It's a bit funny to see TechCrunch commenters refer Fruugo to Boo.com, I think that's perhaps a bit unfair. Boo.com did after all have their three famous C's: Caviar, Champagne and Concorde. It is hard to top that level of insane spending and dot-com madness ever again. Legendary!

I still think that Fruugo holds huge potential, and hope for everybody's sake that they will become a hit and a huge success case. Good luck!

Is sharing the list of blogs you follow a good idea? I think so. Might result in a few odd discoveries and shared insights on what to use as good sources for relevant events, news and insights.

I follow this entire list through www.newsgator.com and their iPhone app, NetNewsWire. Excellent stuff. When I have everything with me on the go it quite effectively at least doubles up the amount of reading I'll be able to get through in a day. Here's the list:

http://www.avc.com/
http://alwayson.goingon.com/
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
http://www.arcticstartup.com/
http://azeem.typepad.com/
http://www.centernetworks.com/
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture
http://daringfireball.net/
http://digg.com/
http://www.digitoday.fi/
http://web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com/
http://www.energybulletin.net/
http://www.kanai.net/weblog/
http://gigaom.com/
http://www.torstensson.com/weblog/
http://www.imediaconnection.com/
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars
http://joi.ito.com/
http://localglobe.blogspot.com/
http://loiclemeur.com/
http://www.macworld.com/
http://mashable.com/
http://www.micropersuasion.com/
http://radar.oreilly.com/
http://www.playnoevil.com/
http://www.programmableweb.com/
http://www.ranchero.com/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/
http://scobleizer.com/
http://www.screditcrunch.com/
http://www.37signals.com/svn/
http://www.smartmobs.com/
http://jussilaakkonen.wordpress.com/
http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/
http://www.topix.com/business/social-software
http://www.texasstartupblog.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/
http://www.theequitykicker.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://vierityspalkki.wordpress.com/
http://web2list.com/
http://news.cnet.com/webware/
http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/
http://www.worldofraids.com/
http://www.ypulse.com/
http://www.zengestrom.com/

Some personal favorites from that list:

The Big Picture = insightful macroeconomic analysis and viewpoints
Whiskey and Gunpowder = very similar to The Big Picture, good stuff
Energy Bulletin = news about the looming energy crisis
Huffington post = high quality opinions straight from the source
Texas Starup Blog = excellent startup stuff
Signal vs Noise = good source for design and attitude

What am I missing? What's on your list?