BizResearch

Oligopoly Watch

Oligopoly Watch is a blog maintained by Steve Hannaford, author of Market domination. The aim of the blog is to make sense of the business pages of newspapers paying particular attention to mergers and acquisitions news. He argues that it is far more useful to see how and why oligopolies work rather than to simply rail against globalism and greed. Most oligopolies are based on struggles for survival, businesses either grow or fail, and since most mature markets have limited growth potential, companies often grow by buying other companies. If nothing else, it's fascinating to see how they do it. The blog is updated frequently, taking on a variety of themes. Also contains a company profiles section.

The poverty and growth blog

The Poverty and Growth Blog is maintained by the staff of the World Bank Institute’s Poverty and Growth Program. The main purpose of this blog is to share knowledge and increase our understanding of the challenges of reducing poverty and accelerating growth. To facilitate this process, the blog offers “knowledge, news, resources, tools, ideas and commentary on issues relating to the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of poverty reduction policies and strategies”.  It tackles a number of broad themes including: advances in development economics; poverty analysis; poverty reduction strategies; macroeconomic management; and gender  The postings cover all regions of the globe with a posting archive dating back to March 2006.

Docuticker

Docuticker is a very useful website that provides daily updates of new reports from government agencies, NGOs, think tanks and other public interest groups.  It covers a huge range of subject areas including: business & economics; Government & politics; industries; social & cultural issues; and foreign policy. The content has a strong US emphasis. The site is maintained by the librarians at ResourceShelf.com including Gary Price, librarian and Director of online information resources at Ask.com. Although this site is not a blog, entries are added on a daily basis which gives it the look and feel of a blog, Visitors to the site can subscribe to a free weekly e-mail newsletter which highlights recent posts or subscribe to their RSS feed for immediate notification of new postings. Well worth a look.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Leo Reynolds

Bizosphere - home of Carnival of the Capitalists

Carnival of the Capitalists (CotC) is a blog carnival which covers the subject areas of business and economics. A blog carnival is best described as a type of online magazine. It typically has an editor and contributors,  specialises in a particular subject area and has a regular publishing cycle (usually weekly or monthly). Finding a carnival for a subject that you are interested in, is a great way to stay informed about what bloggers are currently writing about. Equally, it can act as a platform to share your own work. CotC was first started in September 2003, with the purpose of providing bloggers with an opportunity to showcase their posts and publicize their own blogs. Originally, each edition of CotC was hosted on a different blog, now it has its own dedicated site. Published on a weekly basis, each edition is hosted by a guest blogger who collects blog posts on a given topic, then edits and annotates them.

Interested in finding other carnivals? Try Blog Carnival, which brings together links to carnivals covering a whole range of subjects.

Undercover economist

 Tim Harford, a journalist for the FT maintains an interesting blog called the Undercover economist. The blog, hosted by FT.com, follows on from his book of the same title. It presents fresh explanations of ‘the fundamental principles of the modern economy’. Updated regularly, the blog explores everything from who really makes money from fair trade coffee to do African-Americans spend too much on sneakers? The blog also includes ‘Dear Economist’ a section that provides tongue-in-cheek answers to reader’s questions using the latest economic theory. Well worth a look.

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: athena1970

Free exchange

Free Exchange is a blog hosted by Economist.com which provides ‘lightly moderated’ thoughts and observations from journalists writing for the Economist newspaper, Economist.com and the Economist Intelligence Unit.  All the posts are open to comment and argument but those wishing to do so will need to register for account with Economist.com. RSS feed is available for this site.

 

Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: MatthewBradley

Interested in the business of digital content? Try paidContent

paidContent - a recommended tech blog

paidContent.org - flagship of the ContentNext Media network - provides global coverage of the business of digital content.

• ‘Progress’ In Talk Between Hollywood Producers and Writers; WGA Calls It ‘Massive Rollback’
• Freelance Writers’ $18 Million Settlement With Publishers Declared Void
• AT&T CEO: Let Verizon Have Their Open Network, We’ve Got The 3G IPhone
• Games Media Properties Forms Giant Realm: Part Ad Network, Part Digital Entertainment Portal
• Updated: Ad Network Adbrite Gets Big $23 Million Third Round
• Industry Moves Roundup: AdAge; EMI; Aniboom; Belo
• Patent Office Upholds TiVo’s ‘Time Warp’ Patent; EchoStar’s Legal Appeal Continues

Other offerings include blogs on mobile content - mocoNews.net and on digial content in India - ContetnSutra.com
It offers RSS feeds on its news contetn and alos on jobs and events. There is also a new Finance section tracking companies and financial markets.

Marginal revolution (small steps towards a much better world)

 Marginal Revolution is a blog run by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, professors teaching economics at the George Mason University. Updated daily, it presents an interesting mix of current events plus reviews of new books and research reports. Users can post their comments to selected postings and the blog also provides a useful  list of links to other economic blogs and resources. Well worth a look.

Business ethics blog

The Business ethics blog is run by Chris Macdonald, Associate Professor in the Philosophy department at Saint Mary's University (Halifax, Canada). It provides news and commentary on all areas of business ethics. Mcdonald advises potential readers that anyone that believes either 'a) that corporations have a god-given right to accumulate as much capital as possible without regard for who gets hurt along the way, or b) that all corporations, and all people who work for them, are inherently evil' will most likely be irritated by this blog!  Macdonald also maintains EthicsWeb, an online collection of ethics-related resources and websites (Candian bias but still contains a range of useful resources). 

Entrepreneurship & VC Blogs

Best of of Blogs - VC and Entrepreneurship

When I asked our student clubs which Blogs they read, the top vote in the field of Venture Capital/Entrepreneurship was for Guy Kawasaki.

Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.
Go to the Blog

PRdisasters.com

PRdisasters.com is an interesting blog run by Gerry McCusker, a PR practitioner with over 20 years experience and author of ‘Public Relations Disasters’ a book exploring the concept of ‘reputation management’. The blog features ‘real PR cock-ups’ made by spin doctors, PR agencies and the organizations they represent. It also contains news, views and trends from the PR community, offering advice on how not to run a PR campaign!

Bizmology

Bizmology is a business information blog written by the editors of Hoovers Inc, a company that provides company, industry and market intelligence. The blog provides a wide range of industry news and commentary. Each entry contains links to Hoover's free company fact sheets, press releases and other related websites. Readers can post their own comments and subscribe to a selection of RSS feeds. Either browse or use the search function to find current and archive posts.

The Hoovers database offers company profiles, news and financial data. Coverage includes the large public companies from around the world and some of the larger private companies in the US.

The Hoovers database is available to staff, students and alumni of London Business School Library via the Portal