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August 11, 2006

What Other Blogs Do You Read?


Reading the various blogs aggregated by FullAsAGoog and MXNA is great, but there tends to be a lot of overlap, and the topics usually revolve around Adobe. So I was wondering what else might be out there that's not just "noise?" There's just one simple rule to keep in mind when replying: The blog(s) you mention can't be aggregated by either FullAsAGoog or MXNA. Here's a short list of my current favorites:

  • Guy Kawasaki: One of the original Mac evangelists in the early 80s, Guy is now a managing director at Garage Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. His blog is filled with a treasure trove of real-world knowledge and advice on public speaking and starting and running a business (among other things). If you're in business, you need to read his work. Oh, and I'm also reading his books. I finished The Art of the Start, which provides a sobering blueprint for starting any type of business, and I'm now reading Rules For Revolutionaries, which is an amazing reference for creating and marketing any product or service.
  • Mark Cuban: The billionaire owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, it's easy to think of him as somebody who was just lucky during the dot com boom (when he sold his company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo! for something like $9 billion dollars in July, 1999). However, I've come to realize that while luck always plays into things, Mark is one of the smartest, savviest businessmen I've come across, and you can learn a lot from his posts. He has helped fund the blog search engine IceRocket.com (for which I wrote the pinging support for BlogCFC) and founded and opened HDNet, an all high-definition TV channel of DIRECTV.
  • Robert Scoble: Robert just left his job as Product Evangelist at Microsoft to take a position as VP of Media Development at PodTech.net, which is essnetially an aggregator of podcasting and video blogging content. A true blogging pioneer, Robert has a great pulse on the digital media market.
  • Joel Spolsky: If you were at CFUNITED in 2005, you know why I read Joel's work. He is an incredibly engaging speaker and provides real-world advice on topics such as running a great technology company, software development, internet trends, and more. One of the founders of Fog Creek Software, we use his amazing FogBugz project management system. Joel "gets" developers and truly believes that the people he surrounds himself with are the key to success. I've also read his books Joel on Software, which is a cleanly organized book of his blog entries (which are all styled as witty essays, by the way), and The Best Software Writing I, which is a selection of writings by various authors on all things related to software and software development.
  • FlickrBlog: OK, not much to describe here, but they do occasionally post status updates for Flickr.com. But they do post some amazing high-quality photos which make my shots look incredibly amateur!
  • TheServerSide.com: I really just subscribe to this to see if any of the headlines are appealing. It's very J2EE-oriented, but there are some product announcements that catch my eye.
  • Tom Kyte: If you use Oracle, you need to subscribe to Tom Kyte's site, AskTom. Tom is a world-renowned Oracle guru who answers literally thousands of questions of all levels related to using Oracle. His site has an unbelievably amount of valuable information, and I've learned countless tips and tricks over the last few years.
  • ThinkSecret: This is my one Apple-related blog. These guys specialize in breaking news and announcments surrounding Apple products. Since Apple is notoriously tight-lipped about just about everything, ThinkSecret seems to be the most reliable source of what's coming down the road.
  • Slashdot: As they call it themselves, it's "New for Nerds." While it tends to be a bit anti-Microsoft, they do keep you updated on the goings-on of all things related to technology. And I'm not talking just about software either -- they cover medical, aeronautics, etc.

I have a few more, but they're just feeds related to product announcements (i.e., Oracle security updates, etc.). What about you? Who/What do you read? Remember, they can't be aggregated by FullAsAGoog or MXNA.



Comments
Jim Collins's Gravatar All of my blog feeds are available here:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/jimcollins
# Posted By Jim Collins on 8/11/06 at 12:57 PM
Charles Arehart's Gravatar Dave, that's an interesting question. Here's one not listed above yet who some may enjoy:

Chris Pirillo (formerly of tech tv): http://chris.pirillo.com/

And though they are less news blogs than daily offer sites that are written like blogs, I'll point out these two one-day-sale sites:

http://www.bitsdujour.com
http://www.woot.com
# Posted By Charles Arehart on 8/11/06 at 2:35 PM
Kevin Benore's Gravatar Life of Leo (Leo Laporte from TechTV fame) http://leoville.vox.com/
# Posted By Kevin Benore on 8/11/06 at 7:50 PM
Seth Petry-Johnson's Gravatar Eric Sink's blog at http://software.ericsink.com/

He owns a company that produces source control systems and writes about the business of software. If you like Joel on Software you'll probably like this one as well.
# Posted By Seth Petry-Johnson on 8/13/06 at 9:47 AM
Nelu's Gravatar There is a web tool that gather who-reads-what blogs, lookwhatiblog.com. That might help you with your question.
# Posted By Nelu on 1/17/08 at 11:10 AM

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