Last week, NewsGator announced that they had raised a new round led by Masthead Venture Partners.  This brings the total amount raised by NewsGator to over $10 million.  David Beisel – an associate at Masthead who worked on the deal – has an extensive post on why they decided to make the investment.  Rather than repeat […]

I recently made an angel investment in Jonathan Weber’s (the former editor of The Industry Standard) new publishing venture – New West Network.  I got turned on to Jonathan by Jerry Colonna who knew Jonathan well from the publishing business.  New West isn’t a “venture deal”, so we chose not to fund it as a venture […]

As a member of a quarter Jewish, half Atheist, and a quarter Theraveda Vipassana Buddhist household (there’s only two of us in my household – me and Amy – you figure out the math), I found the following email on Zen Judaism hysterical.  I post it as an ode to my favorite Buddha loving retired […]

Allen Morgan at Mayfield has a nice series up on his blog about the ten commandments for entrepreneurs.  His post today is Commandment #6: Explain Your New Ideas by Analogy To, or Contrast With, Old Ideas. He’s right.  Mostly.  At the end of his post, he asks for ways to “categorize the new ‘It’” (if […]

Fred Wilson wrote today that he and his partner Brad Burnham have officially launched Union Square Ventures and have completed the final close on their inaugural fund.  I’ve known Fred since the first day I started working with Mobius (called Softbank at the time).  My very first Softbank-related meeting was to do due diligence at […]

My long time friend Andy Sack has started blogging. Andy is currently CEO of Judy’s Book, a new local search startup funded by Ignition Partners. Andy is a great entrepreneur. I first met him in Boston in 1995 when we was working with the original team at a new Internet startup called Agents (which turned […]

The Republican Noise Machine : Right Wing Media and How it Corrupts Democracy was a depressing book. I first noticed it from a post by Jerry Colonna. I had it shipped up to my house in Alaska where I settled in for a long read yesterday after my run. In some ways, it seemed appropriate […]

My wife Amy – who is a writer – decided she wanted to try blogging (both reading and writing). She’s intrigued by my fascination with blogging and thought it might be easier than trying to get her novel published, especially since she’d have to finish it first. I decided that rather than set her up, […]

Feedburner implemented an upgrade to their statistics page today. It’s solid progress. I’ve written about the issue of blog stats in the past. This is an area that both as a blogger and an investor I’m particularly interested in because of my historical involvement (and success) with several analytics companies (I use the phrases analytics, […]