Blog dishes tech dirt.
12/8/2003
HBS Working Knowledge forges into the great new world of digital vox populi with our first blog review. What makes a good blog? For our money (although we don't pay) the author must be knowledgeable about his or her subjects, opinionated, a writer with muscle, and good at encouraging discussion among readers. Techdirt hits on those criteria, offering a daily dish-up of interesting news and opinion on topics of interest to the tech community. Recent links have critiqued Dell's policy on so-called spyware, slammed strategies for selling content on the Web, and discussed why "women want wireless." Other popular subjects for slicing include spam, Microsoft, open source, RSS, and privacy. Silicon Valley exec Mike Masnick has been running the site since 1997, and although the site is a partial advertising vehicle for Techdirt Competitive Intelligence, the quality of the content lifts it above pitchware.