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.