Posts from the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Last night I met Matt and Toni (from Automattic) at a neat little place right on the Pier in San Francisco called “Taylor’s Refresher.”
When I asked them which was their favorite micro-brew, they responded by giving me free samples — six of them!
Check it out. Tell ’em VCMike sent you (so I’ll get more free beer next time…)
WordPress.com just turned 1 year old. Matt shares some highlights.
Matt also updates some vital stats for wordpress.com — in the last 10 days WordPress.com users have:
Just trying out WordPress’s new mobile blogging feature.
I like it.
Trying to figure out how important mobile blogging is.
I’d love to hear if any of you think you would make a lot of use of this feature?
I am testing out Heavy.com’s new WordPress widget. With one helluva burger ad!
[myheavy=gatewayUrl=http://www.myheavy.com/flashservices/gateway.php&heavyGatewayUrl=http://www.heavy.com/flashservices/gateway.php&heavyServerPath=http://www.heavy.com&myheavyServerPath=http://cache.myheavy.com&videoID=807&videoType=user&autoPlay=false]
The Huffington Post announced that it has raised $5M dollars from Softbank Capital and Greycroft Partners.
Yet another blog network funding, following recent fundings for PaidContent and GigaOm.
Still early days for the sector; while it is clear that good bloggers can build highly profitable businesses, the open question remains how big these businesses can be.
I am inclined to believe that teams who understand both how to create a must-read blog and how to build a diversified network of vertical media properties have a pretty interesting opportunity.
Am (sorta) on vacation with the family this week in Southern California.
Today is SeaWorld day.
And, after 10 years of Disney, I must say SeaWorld is far and away the better venue.
First, the sea breeze makes the lines and screaming kids much more tolerable than they are in sweltering Anaheim.
Second, being able to do things like swim with dolphins and getting soaked by whales is actually pretty fun.
Third, and most important, Anheuser-Busch owns SeaWorld, and THEY SERVE FREE BEER!
Enough said.
Today it is supposed to go over 100 degrees here in Boston.
It is way too hot to work.
I am playing hooky and taking my daughter to the beach to go surfing (her, not me).
Just wrapping up a hectic but really fun week:
NYC Monday, Boston Tuesday, San Fran Wednesday-Thursday, LA Friday and Friday night (spent with my brother for his birthday), LAX NOW and for the next 5 hours (yes, flight delay courtesy of United) then at long last home tonight.
Sitting here looking back on my week, what stands out is how much time I spent working on something BLOG related.
The week started with Matt and Toni from Automattic coming out and updating my partnership. Everyone was excited by the pretty incredible progress the guys have made since we initially invested not that long ago. As always, Matt and Bob Metcalfe had fun together (Matt gave Bob a blogging tutorial).
We also had an Automattic board meeting Wednesday — more talk about BLOGS. It is becoming clear that the first generation of blogs hosted by WordPress.com (which was only launched in December) are starting to hit a maturity level resulting in a substantial readership, lots of inbound links, and very good search performance. The result is that the overall audience for WordPress.com and the blogs across its network is growing dramatically. Cool!
I also met with four different new companies over the course of the week. It certainly wasn’t by design, but looking back on it I now realize that each of these companies is, in one way or another, a blog-related opportunity.
Finally, I wrapped up the week at the Santa Monica offices of World Championship Sports Network. The WCSN gang is getting ready for our live broadcast of the US Swimming Nationals. As part of our outreach effort the guys are putting the word out on — you guessed it — the most important swimming blogs, some of which have pretty serious audiences.
My overall observation here is that blogging is in the early stages of transitioning from what was generally amateur personal interest blogging with little quality content (there were of course exceptions but in the grand scheme of things not that many) to what is now a more broadly embraced vehicle for creating and disseminating genuinely meaningful and valuable content.
We are still in the very early stages here, but my sense is that blogging is on its way to becoming an important and effective way to either enhance or in some instances to build substantial online properties.
Should be fun to watch this unfold…
Just discovered this posted here.
Thank you readers!
VCMike's Blog