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Conventional wisdom says that entrepreneurs who start a Web-based business will do so with VC money. Read enough stories of Internet ventures that enjoy lucrative exits in the millions (in some cases billions) of dollars, and it's easy to assume that the only path to success is to begin by securing deals with investors who are far less interested in helping a start-up build a substantial brand as they are in realizing a return as quickly as possible. Bootstrapping simply isn't sexy anymore. But for many start-up publishers, bootstrapping is a way of life, and VC money isn't an option.

Silicon Valley start-up Trackle.com is launching the public beta of its personalized Google Alerts to track pretty much everything in an internet user's life. Trackle's technology and interface is innovative and disarmingly comprehensive. It provides real-time personalized RSS feeds of the latest...

The Internet retailer has acquired Touchco, a New York start-up, according to a person briefed on the deal.

LOS ANGELES — The Hollywood trade newspaper Variety is putting its Web site behind a "pay wall" starting Thursday – reserving its online content for paid subscribers and hoping its advertisers will stick around despite the smaller Internet audience. Variety plans to shut off free access gradually, asking one in 10 visitors for a user name and password that will be sent to paying subscribers.

CNN.com is investing in Outside.In, a start-up that feeds neighborhood blogs and other local news to the Web sites of larger media outlets." />

From the February SPARC Open Access Newsletter, by Peter Suber Every research funding agency should have an OA policy, many already do, and most are probably thinking about it.  Here's a guide to the major decisions which come up in framing a new policy, reviewing an older one, or thinking about policies elsewhere.  Peter Suber starts with the choice-points facing funding agencies (1-12), and then look briefly at the choice-points which only arise for universities (13-18).  He offers a recommendation for each. 

Money continues to rain down on "real-time" start-ups. The latest example: a fledgling two-person company called DailyBooth.

Tim O'Reilly and others have called for codes of conduct in the blogosphere, and this is some of what that call has yielded. My problem with it, however, is that it seems to be very, very general -- which is a great starting point, but individual blogs may have other things come up.

Interesting article. I don't really agree with this statement: Maybe too much, said Michael Norris, a senior analyst for Simba Information. "I don't think that the U.S. market can support 50 or 60 e-readers," he said, adding that he had lost count of all the current models. The market can support it; it gives people more options, but it'll just turn into a matter of what device addresses/achieves all of the needs of the consumer. Like the model Arnie went over in class, it's like a bell curve of technological advances that we want/would like, slowly get, but that eventually ends up swamping us. We start out wanting a and b, then c, d, and e are added, which we like. By the time it hits m, n, o, and p, we're overwhelmed.

One more entry before logging off for the night. A startup in Chicago plans to print blogs with local advertisements and distribute them free. Will it catch on?

A look at Adam L Penenberg's book "Viral Loop" which examines the impact of viral marketing.