Commentary:
The Atlantic just released a series of best blog stories which can be downloaded for free until the end of the year. The author writes this it's a personal how-to-guide "for producing meaningful, in-depth stories in a resource-starved, time-crunched media age". It is also a great post that gives insight on tech blogs and how they can last.

"But how to create stock in a blogging environment? It may sound crazy as a content strategy, but we developed a worldview: habits of mind, ways of researching, types of writing. Then, we used the news to challenge ourselves, to test what we thought we knew about how technology worked. Embedded in many stories in this volume, you can see us going back and forth with ourselves over the biggest issues in technology. How much can humans shape the tools they use? What is the relationship between our minds and the tools we think with, from spreadsheets to drones? What is the potential for manipulating biology? How do communications technologies structure the way ideas spread?"

[button text="Read more" url="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/12/how-we-think-about-technology/266527/" color="" target="blank"]

An article on a new report out called "Series A Crunch" on the flood of seed funding for startups that has not translated into an increase in investment that can turn a promising start-up into a real company."The hardiest will find a way to survive on their own". The focus, worldwide, but especially in Jordan will need to be on sustainability -- not only in funding but in local staff, creativity and long terms vision. 2012 was the year of ideas and many had a chance. 2013 will be about who will survive.

"As PandoDaily's Sarah Lacey points out, the Series A crunch shows that big investors are proceeding with due caution, rather than hurling millions at anything with a ".com" in its name like they did in the late 1990s. A few big flameouts like Groupon and Zyngaaside, Lacey is right that "the bulk of the froth in the Web 2.0 world was mostly just in the private hands of insiders, not the public markets or broader economy." The coming year may be a brutal one for startups, but those left standing will be better off than before."
[button text="Read the article in Slate" url="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/12/20/series_a_crunch_tech_startups_are_about_to_start_dropping_like_flies.html" color="" target="blank"]