The most interesting startup, web, technology and generally relevant new stuff I read this week. Some of the stories are older than the past week but have resurfaced because of their quality. Most links were discovered via Ycombinator’ Hacker News. If you want to keep an eye on the startup tech world news during the week, drop by the IA feeds to see a aggregation of some of the best web, startup and technology blogs. Based on some feedback from last weeks round-up I’ll also be sharing why I selected each post below.

Critique View on the Future of WordPress

A great overall critique / summary of the hugely popular WordPress platform… Still in my opinion one of the easiest and powerful platforms for startup entrepreneurs to get started on.

WordPress is today by far the most widely spread blogging platform on the Internet. I am enjoying using WordPress since I made it my “weapon of choice” over Moveable Type and Drupal. I spent lot of time with WordPress and just love it. But that also gives me an opportunity to express some of my concerns regarding the current state of WordPress and the future direction it may be heading. You often get the best critique from those who love you the most.
- Read the whole story at Prelovac Online

Start-Up Town

Great highlight of the growing tech scene in Boulder, CO. I’m stoked to see a fellow green city getting some attention, but I’m also a little jealous… My goal is to see Portland become a major web startup town.

In the past 15 years, Boulder has gone from a little hippie college town to a little hippie college town also boasting an impressive and growing congregation of Internet entrepreneurs, early-stage venture capitalists, and bloggers. How did Boulder pull this off? And what can other cities, policymakers, and entrepreneurs who want to boost their own start-up quotient—and overall competitiveness at a local level—learn from Boulder’s success?
- Read the whole story at The American

Three ways the new browser privacy modes will hurt site owners

The online advertising world is crap enough without any more wrenches being thrown into the mix… the increasing privacy mode browsing is going to muck up analytics and mess with conversions… maybe if things get bad enough we can scrap it all and start over with some better standards and metrics.

Google Chrome has its “incognito” mode, IE 8 has its “InPrivate browsing” mode and Safari has its “private browsing” mode. It’s only a matter of time until Firefox adds one as well. These new privacy modes in the various web browsers will create serious problems for site owners that rely on revenue from affiliate programs and targeted advertising. It will also change the landscape for web statistics software and skew visitor statistics for websites.
- Read the whole story at pingdom

5 Reasons to Move Your Startup Out of Silicon Valley

Again, as an outside of the valley entrepreneur who hopes to build his city into a growing startup hub… I appreciate any supporting arguments that you don’t have to be in SV to be a success.

All tech startups need just a few ingredients to germinate: sophisticated money; first-rate technology universities; and a few template successes (a Google or a Facebook, and so on) to encourage founders to get off their duffs. Contrary to current wisdom, these ingredients exist in many communities outside of Silicon Valley –- in fact, they always have.
- Read the whole story at GIGAOM

The Programming Elite, Programmers Who Read

I’m lucky enough to have a programmer and startup partner who is always reading and learning new things. It is a great example of how to measure the quality of a programmer when you take into account his passion for writing code and his dedication to continually learning and improving his code.

The statistics about reading are particularly discouraging: The average software developer, for example, doesn’t own a single book on the subject of his or her work, and hasn’t ever read one. That fact is horrifying for anyone concerned about the quality of work is the field; for folks like us who write books, it’s positively tragic.
- Read the whole story at Cycle Gap

How often should you publish?

Seth always has interesting ideas and perspectives and in this post he shares a fairly meaty post on thinking about writing two different types of content and who that content reaches.

I’d like to propose that you think about it differently. There’s frontlist and backlist. Frontlist means the new releases, the hits, the stuff that fanboys are looking for or paying attention to. Backlist is Catcher in the Rye or 1984. Backlist is the long tail (the idea) and now, the Long Tail (the book). In a digital world, backlist is where the rest of the attention ends up, and where all the real money is made. Backlist doesn’t show up in the news, but Google is 95% backlist. So is Amazon.
- Read the whole story at Seth Godin’s Blog

Plan B for Fund Raising

Guy’s advice is always short and sweet and he does a great job of cutting the crap out. I also always appreciate the bootstrap approach and here he gives some reasons why it is the better way to go.

Here’s how most entrepreneurs approach venture capital funding raising. I call it Plan A. It’s a plan and an outcome that no one talks about but happens all the time. I’ve been on both sides, so I should know… As readers of this Open Forum blog, I want you to be open to another way. I call this Plan B. In this plan, you take very little if any venture capital until you need capital to expand, not create, your product.
- Read the whole story at Open by American Express Blog

Startup Hacks: 7 Questions VCs Will Ask You, What They Really Mean, and How You Can Answer Them

Anything that helps me understand where VCs are coming from and how to pitch them better is useful information. Often great answers come from understanding what the question is really asking.

There is a certain psychology to fund raising. Here are seven questions VCs ask, what they really mean, and how you can answer them:
- Read the whole story at Mashable

How Startups Are Like Umbrellas: Umbrella Theory 1.0

I’m a sucker for well written analogies and creative thinking. Andrew shares some interesting thoughts on the challenges and benefits of being small or big… and as a Portlander, umbrellas are close to my heart.

This made me think about how owning umbrella works. When you’re lugging around an umbrella, you always wish it was smaller (at least I do), and whenever you’re actually using the umbrella, you wish it was bigger.
- Read the whole story at

44 tools to help you in your design work

A solid list of design related resources. As a bootstrapping entrepreneur, handy resources are always helpful… and he gets bonus points for calling Kuler a copy of COLOURlovers…

The web is full of resources, but they’re often hard to reach. This is the reason why I think it’s important to organize them with a coherent structure and share it with you.
- Read the whole story at Designer Daily

20 Firefox Add-ons to Enhance your Web Development

Like the above, any summary of helpful reasources is appreciated… and for the crowd that hasn’t taken the Chrome plunge, this is a great set of add-ons for FF.

There are lots of free extensions and add-ons available on the internet for Firefox, but which are the best add-ons that can Really help you as a web developer or designer in terms of time and effort?… So here’s 20 extremely useful Firefox Add-ons that can help developers create websites more efficiently.
- Read the whole story at noupe

GREAT VCS RESPOND, FAST: Pick investors who give you unfair share of time and mind

You can get cuaght up worrying about who will fund your startup or even if you’ll get funding at all… this was a great reminder of how a great VC isn’t just money but a supportive team members, and provides some examples of strengths to look for.

I thought you would benefit by thinking about the distinguishing characteristics of a great venture capitalist and board member. It will help you as you screen the VCs you consider as you seek investors for your startup.
- Read the whole story at Nesheim Group

Honey, I Shrunk the Startups!

A balanced article about the trend towards smaller funded startups, but some of the challenges is having enough to cover the people costs to have a solid enough team to really do something… or “f*** with the order of things” as the author puts it.

Taking big risks is where Americans have always stood head and shoulders above everyone else: get-rich-quick schemes have been our specialty. But now the new fashion among the professional risk-takers has been to risk very little.Rick Moranis in Honey I Shrunk the Kids… $100,000 is the New $10 Million
- Read the whole story at Redfin Blog

 
 
Enjoy your weekend reading and I’ll see you next week for another smattering of useful or entertaining links.
Launch Well.
-D