A VC: Personal Publishing

Personal Publishing

I saw a blog post recently that listed 65 "VC blogs". It included this blog. And I am sure that many people think of this blog as a VC blog.

But it is not a VC blog. It is a Fred Wilson blog. Sure I write about VC, because that's what I do for a living (and for fun too). But it's also about other stuff that I find interesting.

Don't get me wrong. I am sure that the vast majority of my readers are entrepreneurs or others who are interested in the VC point of view. And I think that advertisers who want to reach that audience should find this blog to be an attractive place to advertise.

I read an article called The Future of Email this morning that included this quote from Paul Gillin:

"We hear a lot about blogs, but blogs aren't important. What's important is personal publishing, or the ability to communicate a message to a global audience almost instantaneously. Personal publishing will permeate electronic media, providing counterpoint to mainstream sources and adding depth and color to the conversation.

Personal publishing is by definition personal. It's by people. Meaning it isn't edited, scripted, couched, qualified, or programmed. I am sure there are many blogs that are edited, scripted, couched, qualified, and programmed.

But I don't read them. I want "depth and color added to the conversation."

I like reading what other people write in the comfort of their own pages. If they are writing about VC, great. If they are writing about music, great. If they are writing that their best friend died, that's fine too. As long as it's personal, real, and authentic. If I want the other kind of writing, I can turn to the New York TImes or the Wall Street Journal.

Comments

Blogging has become so huge because it has become so easy for "normal" people to operate a personal site without html/ftp/etc. Fairly easy to add thoughts, their photos... their lives to the Web.

Meanwhile, my web reading has almost completely switched from newspapers and magazines to blogs.

Posted by: Rick | July 31, 2006 at 06:40 PM

Fred:
I hear what you are saying and actually several of the blogs on my list are by venture capitalists but not really about venture capital. Pascal Levensohn's blog also springs to mind (http://www.pascalsview.com/), which is almost exclusively about issues related to Judaism. The point of my list is two fold, a) many VCs provide great advice about entrepreneurship in their blogs and b) blogs provide entrepreneurs insight into a VC personality that is otherwise difficult to obtain. In the same sense that Union Square is using candidates’ web presence as part of the evaluation/recruitment process for Charlie O'Donnell’s analyst position, I encourage entrepreneurs to use a venture capitalist’s web presence to perform their own homework. So please keep writing your Fred Wilson blog.
-Andrew

Posted by: Andrew Fife | July 31, 2006 at 08:18 PM

What makes blogs more interesting than traditional journalism is the chance to learn directly from practitioners.

In the old days, if we wanted to find out about a hot new technology, we'd have to wait for the trade press to cover it (and even then they'd butcher the coverage).

Now we can hear the info direct from the source, with an entire blogosphere to comment and keep the source (relatively) honest.

Lost in all the anti-blogging sentiment that attacks the lack of professionalism and objectivity is the fact that the mainstream press lacks those as well.

When the subject comes up, I always ask people: "Have you or one of your friends ever been written about in the press?"

Usually the answer is yes.

"Okay, was the article accurate, or did it f--- things up."

Usually, the answer is "It totally f---ed things up."

Then I'd go for the coup d'etat. "So if they f---ed up your story, what makes you think any of the other stories are any more accurate?"

Posted by: Chris Yeh | July 31, 2006 at 08:31 PM

amen to that fred

Posted by: simon | July 31, 2006 at 11:52 PM

Hallelujah! While I find many of the blogs i read through searches, and read a lot of themed-blogs (like slashfood), I especially enjoy the blogs I read that are just people telling their stories.

That said, most of the personal blogs I read, I found because the people are either in my industry, in an industry i find interesting, or their blogs was in someone else that I find interesting's blogroll.

I hate it when I find someone's blog, and get all jazzed up about it, only to find it is purely a marketing machine with no soul. I mean, if you've got real passion about your work, and share that, that's awesome, but if the passion isn't there, it's painfully obvious.

The irony is that my company has the most anti-blog out there. Each post is a sales pitch about a new feature. It makes me ill. Luckily, it hasn't been updated in about 9 months, so i made the executive decision to pull the plug!

I am CEO next time around, at my startup debuting at the end of september (get the hint?). No clowns this time, the blog is completely in my hands, and if you ever see me lose my personality on it, please slap me, physically or virtually, I'll enjoy it.

Posted by: daryn | August 01, 2006 at 12:18 AM

Fred, it may be personal publishing - but titles do mean a lot. This blog is called "A VC."

It's a personal blog, sure. But it is intentionally written through the lens of a VC, and I think it's perfectly fair to call this a VC blog.

You're right that what makes this blog a hell of a lot more captivating than the Business section is that it's also about you (I feel like I know you to some degree, though we've only ever exchanged emails, and that rarely).

But I think that a personal blog without a certain focus or orientation is often dangerously wishy-washy or (ironically) narrow in its appeal.

You're an interesting guy, and whatever it is that you do--it just happens to be VC--would be interesting to read about. So blogging (or personal publishing) is really the first medium where the *person* matters as much as the material.

But don't sell your subject short. I first started reading you here because of your VC posts.

Posted by: Jason Preston | August 01, 2006 at 01:28 AM

Great post as it makes you think.

It is great to have apoint of view but the real beauty of blogging is to gt comfortable with your voice.

When I did stand-up, I learned that the best didnt try and be funny on stage, they just did it. It's easier said than done and even easier on a blog - less hecklers. It should be the goal of every blogger.

Posted by: howard lindzon | August 01, 2006 at 02:52 AM

I agree and disagree.

Like you, I like unscripted personal accounts, but, at the same time, I like to read something that is well written. The NYT or LA Times, give me news. There is nothing like a good blog/e-magazine. I won't name any here.

Posted by: Bob Boydston | August 01, 2006 at 11:58 AM

Agree with the previous comment. While personal accounts are interesting enough for the 2pm work slump, the real draw of blogs is the fact that people give their unfiltered opinions on topics of interest. I dont believe you can say the same of the NYT or the WSJ. Despite being fine publications, they are bound by the limitations of the editorial process.

Posted by: Bharath | August 01, 2006 at 02:19 PM

Amen.

To me a more apt name is "peer publishing" -- it's not necessarily that it's written by a single person (after all, everything is written by a person, even if they are a PR flack) but that we have a new (and I hate to use the word) paradigm in media where we move from the top-down "broadcast" model (in the broadest sense of broadcast) to a peer-to-peer model. Even when peer publishing isn't explicitly "personal" it interacts with readers as peers. Blogs (those that have comments, anyway) are the most pure example of this today, but the entire YouTube/MySpace phenomenon is another obvious manifestation of the network architecture's influence on the nature of our relationship to "the media". The "edited, scripted, couched, qualified, or programmed" blogs don't interact with their audiences as peers, and that's what puts them outside this new way of doing things, even if they come to the world dressed up in the trappings of bloghood.

Posted by: Nathan Dintenfass | August 02, 2006 at 12:31 AM

> Meaning it isn't edited, scripted, couched, qualified, or programmed...But I don't read them. I want "depth and color added to the conversation."...If I want the other kind of writing, I can turn to the New York TImes or the Wall Street Journal.

Ive read a lot of articles and listened to a lot of people try and explain the "blogging" phenomena. However, this post most accurately captures the essence of its appeal. Traditional media is so heavily filtered, topical and self-serving that its actually misleading. Equity research has always done an incredible disservice with its almost singularly optimistic perspective. Henry Blodgets Internet Outsider is a great example of what blogging has enabled; a far more even-handed perpective from someone who clearly understands how to analyze leading internet companies. There are many examples...Point is, generally, bloggers dont answer to anyone, anything is fair game and blog readers dont have patience for anything but a fresh perspective. For those of us who enjoy candor, the personal publishing movement is a breadth of fresh air.

Posted by: Jonathan Marcus | August 02, 2006 at 11:24 AM

Posted by: JEROGatch | November 08, 2006 at 10:14 AM

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Personal Publishing

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