BusinessWeek has an eight-page spread in the most recent issue on blogs, including some eye-catching stats. In particular, I was interested - due to my fascination with investing - by the fact venture capital firms pumped US$60 million into blog startups last year. I'd like to see a list of these companies to see if there are common themes in terms of business models - or whether any of them have business models at all. If you look at some of the exit deals of blog start-ups recently (Ask Jeeves-Bloglines as an example), it strikes me that many of them are more purchases of technology and users than businesses. It raises the question whether VC investments in blog start-ups is a quick-return M&A game - akin to how many VCs frantically raced into search engines and e-commerce sites during the dot-com boom.
Adendum: I stumbled across a blog that suggested Yahoo was poised to make investments in blog tools. Among the rumored targets was Six Apart, which owns Type Pad, Live Journal and Moveable Type.

Some interesting comments on the Canadian wireless industry's plan to create a plan to introduce wireless local number portability. Several analysts don't think WLNP will be a big deal because a growing number of consumers are tied into long-term contracts. As for when WLNP could be launched, analysts do not expect it to happen until at least 2006 at very earliest.

VoIPshield Systems Inc., which is developing security technology to protect voice traffic over IP networks, has received $2 million in seed financing from Brightspark Ventures. The cash will be used to complete work on software that is slated to be released later this year. VoIPshield claims it's the first company to focus entirely on security issues specific to IP voice. It's encouraging to see Canadian venture capital firms invest in Internet telephony - actually, it's heartening to see Canadian VCs invest in any technology company after sitting on the sidelines for several years after the dot-com boom. Brightspark thrust itself into the spotlight a couple of years ago when it sold ThinkDynamics - an internally created software maker, to IBM for $50-million. It was brought to my attention that Brightspark also has an investment in Iotum Corp., which is developing software to route and manage Internet telephony calls. (Note: Iotum needs to update its Web site because it is nearly impossible to get a handle on what they're actually doing. Perhaps they want it that way.)