Best of the tech blogs

30 January - Michael Arrington, the founder of one of the most respected technology blogs - TechCrunch - has announced that he is taking a break after being spat on and receiving death threats. Over the past few years bloggers have become an increasingly important group. But when people feel that the best way to influence is to spit or send death threats, surely something has gone badly wrong.

A catch-all term
Posted by David Cushman
fasterfuture.blogspot.com

1 February - There are those who see social media as standing in the way of the true significance of the ad hoc group-forming nature of the internet. I usually answer the 'What is social media?' question with: "Any form of peer- to-peer comms which is digitally enabled." It is my catch-all to cover everything from sms texting, through email, Facebook, Twitter, et al.

European M&A
Posted by Brendon Craigie
interactive.hotwirepr.com

29 January - According to corporate finance specialists Regent Partners there is still a very healthy level of acquisitions in the European technology market. Not surprisingly the value of deals was down on 2007 levels. Why should we care? If there are fewer opportunities for start-ups to exit then there will be less investment and therefore less new companies driving innovation.