by Fred Wilson, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures
When I started blogging four and a half years ago, there was a clear delineation between bloggers and journalists. But that’s all changed, and now we have this new category, the journablogger.
The journablogger has his or her own blog or works in a blog network like paidContent, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Silicon Alley Insider, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, VentureBeat, etc., etc. Just look at the top of Techmeme’s leaderboard and you’ll see them right next to the traditional journalists like the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNET, etc.
Fred Wilson lit a fire today suggesting that certain bloggers need to step it up a notch to improve quality and be more like mainstream journalists.
A fair point if spoken generally, although I’d argue that the quality of reporting done by many bloggers today, at least in the tech space, is equal to or better than most mainstream journalism. I think this is particularly true when we’re talking about breaking, non-embargoed news, where contacts and inside sources matter more than having all the time in the world to think about, research, write and edit an article. His point, therefore, should have been that all news writers need to step it up a notch and aim for better quality, which is sort of like saying nothing at all.
by Fred Wilson, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures
Let me start this post by saying that I don’t think Microsoft will achieve its goal of obtaining some sort of balance and scale in the search market with an acquisition of Yahoo. If you look at the share of search that Google has had over the past five years, it’s an ever increasing line. I think that line will keep increasing, year after year, until Google has all of the search market (at least here in the U.S. and the English-speaking world). I don’t think there’s much that Yahoo and/or Microsoft can do about it.
by Fred Wilson, Managing Partner, Flatiron Partners and Union Square Ventures
I know Apple is one of the most loved companies in the world. I know that my girls and my friend Howard have ridden Apple’s stock from pre-split $20s to 10-to-15x returns. I know that the Apple lovers will hate me and flame me for what I am about to say.
My brand image of Apple [...]
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