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November 26, 2005

recommended reading

9 Comments

I’m in Stockholm, teaching a crash course in blog­ging to some stu­dents.
Rather than just ratt­ling off a laundry list of what to do, ins­tead I’m going to give you a list of blog­gers who I rate highly. Read them reguarly, and after a while you should dis­co­ver why what they do works so well.
1. Jeff Jar­vis. A for­mer jour­na­list, Jeff is best known for his com­men­ta­ries on the chan­ging face of the media busi­ness. Very little hap­pens in this space that Jeff doesn’t notice, soo­ner than most.
2. Robert Sco­ble. The chief blog­ger at Mic­ro­soft. He also co-authored an exce­llent book on cor­po­rate blog­ging with Shel Israel, called “Naked Con­ver­sa­tions”. What’s most inte­res­ting about him is the affect his blog has on the inter­nal Mic­ro­soft cul­ture, ver­sus the “exter­nal con­ver­sa­tion”. This has all to do with what I call “The Porous Mem­brane”.
3. Doc Searls. A great visio­nary. Co-authored “The Clue­train Mani­festo”, the semi­nal book on how the inter­net will affect mar­kets, and huma­nity in gene­ral.
4. Seth Godin. Pro­bably the most dis­tinc­tive voice on mar­ke­ting in the blo­gosphere.
5. Loic Le Meur. French entre­pre­neur and Euro­pean head of Six Apart, the blog soft­ware com­pany.
6. Fred Wil­son. New York ven­ture capi­ta­list. Wri­tes enga­gingly about this most mys­ti­fied of busi­nes­ses.
7. Jason Cala­ca­nis. He just sold his blog­ging com­pany, Weblog­sInc to AOL for a small for­tune. Fast-talking an highly opi­nio­na­ted, the one thing you can’t call him is “boring”.
8. Tom Coa­tes. Pro­bably the most res­pec­ted blog­ger in the U.K., and right­fully so.
9. English Cut. The blog of my busi­ness part­ner, Tho­mas Mahon. Tho­mas is arguably one of the top dozen tai­lors in the world, and works on Savile Row. Last January I con­vin­ced him to start a blog, which totally trans­for­med his busi­ness within only a few months. He’s my best case study for crea­ting what I call the “Glo­bal Mic­ro­brand”.
10. Manolo the Shoe Blog­ger. Manolo Loves the Shoes!
11. Tech­no­rati. This is a web­site that tracks “con­ver­sa­tions” in the blo­gosphere. If you have a blog, I’d make sure you’re sig­ned up with them.
12. What soft­ware to use: This blog is powe­red by Mova­ble Type. I like it. Other soft­ware that I rate highly is Type­pad and Word­Press.
13. [Bonus Link:] Robert Scoble’s blo­groll. Yes, he reads a lot of them.
[AND IN OTHER NEWS:] Looks like one of my wee car­toons just made Page Two of the New York Times Busi­ness Sec­tion. Rock on, Bud­get Rent-A-Car and B.L. Och­man.

9 Responses to “recommended reading”

1. Loic says:

   November 26, 2005 at 4:29 PM

   Thanks Hugh, funny you are in Stockholm, I was there last week. Now I have more pres­sure to blog more in english, I have been blog­ging much more in French recently, as I get so many com­ments on my french blog…
2. jim nellis says:

   November 26, 2005 at 7:26 PM

   Saw your car­toon in the NYT.
   Tried to explain to my wife why I was smi­ling.
   Very cool.
   Keep it up, dude!
3. Andrew says:

   November 27, 2005 at 4:47 AM

   “6. Fred Wil­son. New York ven­ture capi­ta­list. Wri­tes enga­gingly about this most mys­ti­fied of busi­nes­ses.” I’m not sure whether “mys­ti­fied” is a typo or “mys­tif­ying” or a com­ment on the VC busi­ness. Of course, it could be both…
4. m says:

   November 27, 2005 at 3:47 PM

   no women?
5. zuckerwatte.twoday.net says:

   November 27, 2005 at 9:34 PM

   Manolo, der Schuh-Blogger

   Hugh Mac­leod h
6. Patrick Dodds says:

   November 27, 2005 at 9:42 PM

   Stockholm. I am sure it is not true, though I couldn’t cate­go­ri­cally prove it, that the Vassa is the most inte­res­ting thing there.
   Actually, that is unfair — the museum of modern art is fan­tas­tic and the food good too. Cold, chic and sty­lish Scan­da­na­vian design was in short supply tho’ — where did we go wrong? I sus­pect money was at the root of our pro­blems i.e. we weren’t spen­ding enough of it.…..
   Anyhoo, what I meant to say was, are you sho­wing signs of bore­dom with the blog­ging bit or am I rea­ding too much into recent posts / car­toons / timings of posts? I hope you aren’t as you’re blog (I still hate the word, tho’ not as much as “pod­cast”) has been an inspiration.
7. IF says:

   November 28, 2005 at 9:38 AM

   Hugh MacLeod’s Top 15 Blogs

   The Gaping Void lists his 15 top blogs: “I’m going to give you a list of blog­gers who I rate highly. Read them reguarly, and after a while you should dis­co­ver why what they do works so well.” GapingVoid…
8. Bourgeois Wife says:

   November 28, 2005 at 3:09 PM

   Tsk! V. disap­poin­ted at the lack of women… Are we really so bad??
9. kelly says:

   November 30, 2005 at 9:56 PM

   Blog Soft­ware: I think the most fea­tu­res can be found in Manila, the ori­gi­nal blog soft­ware. It’s not free but you can start cheap. Manila Blog Hos­ting is $4.95 /mo at http://www.clubhause.com
   I like having com­plete con­trol over the tem­plate with no blog­ger bars. I like being able to send pho­tos and make text entries directly from my dumb camphone to my blog via Flickr.
   /kt