Om Malik, who doesn't seem to like me or Weblogs, Inc. (and who is also part of the Nick Denton/Jeff Jarvis gang), declares that VCs are getting into blogging in his most recent essay. He's correct in pointing out that VCs are looking at blog search engines like Feedster and that VCs are not going to do well investing in blogs like Nick Denton's. (Of course, even if a VC wanted to invest in a porn business like Nick's Fleshbot they couldn't because of their agreements with their limited partners—but I digress.)

VCs rarely invest in content if at all (they did forget this rule in the Internet era and invested in things like iVillage, UBO and thestreet.com). When VCs have invested in web content it hasn't worked out. VCs don't invest in magazines, newsletters, TV shows, films, or books.

Media simply doesn't have the hockey stick curve that VCs love and tech firms strive for (think biotech or software firms that have fixed cost businesses that grow wildly).

Of course, media business can do very well and can be started for very little (I know, Silicon Alley Reporter grew from zero to $12m in revenue a year in four short years without VC investment). Nick Denton will prove this to all of this when he starts making $100k a month from porn advertising next year.

A lot has happened since then, and I have a couple of micro-scoops for you. My sources tell me that David Sifry's Technorati is about to receive a substantial bit of funding, most likely from August Capital soon. No confirmation, and this could be a rumor of course! (And talking about rumors, Tribe.Net is also close to getting a big round of funding from one of the Valley big guns, though it has nothing to do blogging!) Elsewhere I have heard Scott Rafer, co-founder of Wi-Finder and newly appointed chief executive officer of FeedSter is beating down the bushes for funds and will get them shortly. His model of combining ad words with RSS feeds is an attractive business proposition. Chris Alden, the co-founder of the vintage Red Herring magazine is working on a start-up that will be a combination of blog-directory and a publication. (Details pending!)