Fenway West (Baseball)

REVIEWED BY: Ms Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: Yes

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Fenway West, by Matt O'Donnell

WEB ADDRESS: http://fenwaywest.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: A Boston Red Sox blog written by authors across the United States. The blog is updated multiple times each day with team news and analysis.

MY REVIEW: Multiple posts a day, but not much substance. One post is always the day's lineup...do we really need to know that? [Just tell me when Ellsbury is back on the field!] Although I suppose people will want to know who the pitcher is.

There's also not a lot of game analysis. Here's what was said about last night's game:

Hits were hard to come by against Orioles starter Brian Matusz and the Red Sox were getting shut out until Varitek hit his fourth homer of the season in the fifth. Lackey gave up ten hits but kept the O's from any big innings, he went seven innings with three earned runs. Scutaro and Youk both had three-run homers in the seventh to give the Sox a big lead which would almost disappear when the bullpen let Baltimore back in it. Ramon Ramirez gave up a homer and Papelbon gave up a run on three hits before closing the door and holding on for the save.

Not a lot of info there!

That might not be such a big deal,except this blog is still priced at $1.99 a month. That's a bit too high for the amount of info provided. Nevertheless, check it out for yourself.

RECENT POSTS:
--Red Sox Hold On to Beat the O's
--Jonathan Van Every is Back with the Red Sox
--Red Sox Lineup 4/24 vs Baltimore
--Papi and Lester Get the Monkey off of Their Backs
--Red Sox Lineup 4/23 vs Baltimore
--Dunkin' Donuts and Dustin Pedroia Wish Tito a Happy Bday!

___________________
Ms. Cairo writes two blogs of her own:
Winged Victory: Women in Aviation
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters

Retro Review: Information Arbitrage (business and investing)

Website: http://informationarbitrage.com/

Information Arbitrage A 17-year Wall Street veteran's perspectives on investment, hedge funds, and ways to harness the power of the internet for Institutional Investors.. Publisher: Information Arbitrage. Costs 99 cents a month.

Some text from his latest blog entry:

IA Venture Strategies - Working to Build a Better Venture Mouse-trap
As was ably covered by Dan Primack in PEHub, I am starting a new venture fund. However, as my friends and venture colleagues know, I am extremely down on what the venture industry has become. To be clear, it is less an issue of structure (management + incentive fees in a GP/LP structure) and more an issue of size. It is clear to understand how motivations get skewed when venture firms effectively become asset managers, where the management fees alone are sufficient to make the partners rich and investments must become increasingly large and non-venture like. Growth capital is not venture capital in my parlance. Venture capital means funding "ventures" - taking on early-stage risk - and actively helping companies execute their plans and achieve their potential. I have a theory that the largest a true venture fund can be, which means, having a seed-stage investment charter together with a "life cycle" approach to investing (leaning into winners, deploying larger amounts of capital in Series A and B rounds, if necessary) is around $300 million. But I digress...

I decided to start my fund after determining that many of the deals I was seeing were both strategic and thematic, strategic to my trading company and thematic in that they all had a common thread - helping to manage and extract value from massive, often real-time data sets - "big data" in jargon. Rather than prosecute them as an angel, I felt a fund structure would better enable me to "size up" in particular deals and to cast a wider net across the big data domain. I wanted the fund to be small ($25 million stated goal, but with the ability to go a little higher) and I wanted it to be different than most venture funds I know, who have raised money largely from pension funds and endowments. I really wanted the fund to be an extension of my activities as an angel, where I frequently build syndicates of value-added angels and select venture firms to help de-risk the portfolio companies and create a network effect across a particular domain.

Talking about the blogs of investors who can start $25 million funds is just a leetle bit outside my area of expertise. All I can say is he certainly sounds like he knows what he’s talking about!

The author, Roger Ehrenberg, updates this blog on an irregular basis. When he’s “on” he does it every four days or so, but sometimes there’s a month in between. It is with this kind of blog that subscribing via the Kindle is most necessary. It only costs 99 cents a month – the cost of a cup of coffee, and when he does make a post you get it immediately without having to constantly check his website. And should he never update it (which I doubt will happen, but of course, anything’s possible) you’re only out $12 for the year. I’d say that’s a better investment risk than many out there!

Reading such a blog gives the average investor an insight into the rarified air of these fund managers, shows how their minds think, and so on. It’s a fascinating read.

Retro Review: The Franchise King

The Franchise King Blog Cleveland, Ohio franchise guru provides franchise investment tips,discusses upcoming trends,and reports on small business activity.

Website: http://thefranchiseking.typepad.com/

The Franchise King Blog is another one of those blogs that, at its website, gives you a paragraph, then a link that says “Read more here.” But, their blog interface is sophisticated enough so that on the Kindle, you get the entire article seamlessly, no need to click on a Read More button! I don’t know why more bloggers don’t have their feed set up that way.. perhaps they don’t realize that it’s possible to do that.

Anyway, The Franchise King is another fascinating business blog. The author talks about the various types of franchises out there (and there are more than just fast food restaurants).

Well-written, informative, and if you're thinking of opening a franchise, worth your time and money.

Here’s the last four entries:

--This low-investment business opportunity is now a member of the #100 club (Speaking Roses)
--Franchises for Sale! Huge Savings! Franchise Prices Slashed! Huge rebates!
--My Franchise Business Advice for the week of Feb 8, 2010
--Constant Contact Announces the Recipients of the Franchise Excellence in Email Awards

Retro Review: Vanity Plates

REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION PAGE: Vanity Plates: Creepiness In 8 Characters Or Less

WEB ADDRESS: horriblelicenseplates.blogspot.com

BLOG DESCRIPTION: We are a team (Mr. & Ms. HorribleLicensePlates) looking to find the most ridiculous license plates out there, because well, we think they are really annoying, and sometimes, quite humorous. Ever want to know the meaning behind a vanity plate? Want your submission interpreted? Looking for bizzare ideas for your own? You've come to the right place. We don't have road-rage, we have plate-rage. This blog is our way of venting. Thanks for stopping by.

MY REVIEW: I live in an area with more than its fair share of vanity license plates, and I had often thought of starting a blog or website where I would share them with the world. But, I never got a Round Tuit and now I won’t have to, because Mrs and Mrs Horrible License Plates have beat me to it.

I must say I think the name is unnecessarily pejorative, some of these plates are quite amusing or show ingenuity or something, only a small percentage of them are creepy!

This is a very fun blog, and I recommend it highly. If you’re looking for a blog a day entry that can get you smiling, no need for those “joke a day” sites that take time to read and more often than not seem to be aimed only at the male of the species. Vanity Plates can put a smile on your face in half the time.

RECENT ARTICLES:

• TRTLPWR – (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
• ILUVME
• SBOUTME
• IM2MUCH
• FXYGRMA

Retro Reviews: TechCrunch, TechDirt, and Scobleizer

TechCrunch. TechCrunch is a group-edited blog that is dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new and existing Internet products and companies that are making a commericial and/or cultural impact. Business Week readers and CNet have voted TechCrunch one of the top tech blogs. Publisher: Tech Crunch

TechCrunch, Techdirt and the Scobleizer provide industry info (they can fit in both the internet and industry-specific categories, but I'm going to keep them in the internet category). They each seem to cover different niches.

TechCrunch is for information on building web apps
Techdirt is more interested in covering copyright issues.
The Scobleizer seems focused on Google and its competitors

TechCrunch seems to average five posts a day or so.

-Paypal, Venrock incubate BillFloat to develop Innovative Payment Services, by Robin Wauters
-Refinery29 raises seed funding foy hyperlocal fashion news site, by Leena Rao
-Google, Mozilla claim AOL’s China portal may harm your computer, by Robin Wauters
-What’s better, saving the world or building another Facebook App, by Vivek Wadhaw
-MySpace Stream Architect Monica Keller Jumps to Facebook, by Jason Kincaid
-Pownce Founder Lea Culver Leaves Six Apart

Techdirt. Voted "Best of the Web" by Forbes, Mike Masnick uses his background in marketing and business development, and his experience working for a tech start-up company, to provide valuable and easily digestible tech news that helps businesses make better, more informed decisions. Bloggers have a wide range of knowledge in fields of technology, communications, media, biotechnology, financial services, retail, automotive, and government.

From his last few posts, it looks to me more like he focuses on copyright issues and intellectual property, rather than anything else, but for anyone who puts something on the web and doesn’t want to see it stolen (or in some cases wants validation that they’re not really stealing), it’s a must read.

Here are the last five posts:

-Google Music Blog Mess Highlights Why Three Strikes Will Not Work
-Teen Remixes the Work of Others into Best Selling Novel, by
-Entertainment Industry Get Their Own Piracy Policy in the Justice Department
-Australian Phonebook Says You Can’t Copyright Facts, Phone Books Not Protected
-Olympics Using Bogus Copyright Claims to Take Down All Videos of Fatal Luge Crash
-Should the Feds Need a Warrant to Find out where your Mobile Phone is?

Scobleizer. Scobleizer is a technical blog created by Robert Scoble, the vice president of Media Development at Podtech.net. It features breaking news about the latest developments in computer software. Publisher: Robert Scoble

Well, after reading TechCrunch and Techdirt, the Scobleizer seems to pale in comparison. Or perhaps its just because he seems to have a narrow focus – Google at war with its competitors. To me, it doesn’t seem to be enough info for the price. (It costs $1.99 to have it delivered to your Kindle. So do TechCrunch and Techdirt, but you get so much content from those two, that its worth it.

His blog is at http://scobleizer.com/, and here’s who he is: Robert Scoble is an employee of Rackspace, which can help you with all your hosting needs. He is chief troublemaker in the building43 community of Internet fanatics.

So, if you’re interested in watching Google either succeed or get its come-uppance (and I admit I resent them having purchased DejaNews, lo these many years ago) you can read it here.

Here are the last five entries:

-Why Google won’t give Twitter or Facebook a Buzzcut Tomorrow (this was uploaded Feb 8). Google was scheduled to release a newsfeed to compete with Facebook and Twitter. [Well, I suppose that’s better than them buying Facebook or Twitter!]
-The social failings of Google
-A TED responsibility
-Why if you miss Siri you’ll miss the future of the web
-Google’s two-front war with Apple and Facebook; who are the winners and losers