CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Philadelphia bloggers were abuzz this week about a citywide move to crack down on citizens running a business without a license — which includes any local bloggers running ads on their sites.

The weekly Philadelphia City Paper kicked off the kerfuffle with an article spotlighting several small-scale bloggers who were startled to receive letters from the city demanding that they shell out up to $300 for a license allowing them to operate a local business. One of the recipients had raked in a whopping profit of $11 over two years from his blog. MORE

If you find yourself worrying about this country’s educational system, this blog will send you over the edge. Detention Slip bills itself as “your daily cheat sheet for education news,” but almost all of the news is bad in a really big way.

Consider these recent entries: “Second grader brings heroin to school,” “Texas schools allow teachers to carry guns,” and “Student Banned After Setting Teen’s Turban on Fire.” The blog solicits juicy tips from readers, and it’s clear the site has a strong following among teachers who enjoy reading about students worse than their own. There’s also a contest that asks teachers to submit their most outrageous or ridiculous detention slips.

Telling tales out of school has seldom been this entertaining.

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1000 Awesome Things is a blog, updated every weekday, that enumerates the little things in life that make us happy. It’s a reminder that even the smallest of feats, like “#936 Perfect parallel-parking on the first try” or “#572 Learning a new keyboard shortcut” are a reason to smile.

The site was launched in June 2008 and has been counting down from 1,000 ever since. Now at post number 449, the site is so popular that creator Neil Pasricha even released “The Book of Awesome Things” in April. When asked what will occur when he reaches number 1, Pasricha said, “Something very awesome will happen.”  VIEW IT

SUMMARY FROM TIME MAGAZINE

Deadspin is a blog for the sports fan who loves the game but realizes that there’s plenty of action happening off the field. Averaging more than 10 million page views per month, Deadspin is the web’s most popular sports blog, a reliably snarky sports reporter that pretty much ignores the score of last night’s game and focuses instead on the controversies and scandals that cling to modern sports heroes like Saran Wrap. Deadspin even breaks the occasional sports story; — it was first to report that Mark McGwire’s brother is shopping a book that claims the baseball slugger first started taking steroids in 1994. Deadspin calls out not only sports stars, but also those who revere them, in particular TV announcers. The blog’s “Media Approval Ratings” feature invites readers to sound off on various sports media personalities, an exercise which often turns into an online public flogging.

Sample Deadspin post: Even though we’ve been accused of having some sort of vendetta against Chris Berman in the past, we can honestly say that’s not even close to true. We still (mostly) enjoy him on “NFL Primetime,” or the “Blitz,” or whatever the hell they call that now.

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SUMMERY FROM TIME:
Godin is the author of nearly a dozen business books and a popular speaker at conferences. Reading his blog, it’s easy to see why people pay to hear what he has to say. Godin is a marketer, but in the broadest sense of the word.

He’s interested in not simply how products are marketed, but also how people sell themselves and their ideas, and how new technology can be a game-changer. His blog is full of insights about the social changes wrought by technology and the nature of creativity, and it offers loads of practical advice. There are tips on how to plan for a deadline so it doesn’t destroy you, how to market yourself for your next jo, and the importance of asking at least three stupid questions a week. Godin’s musings provide daily fodder for countless other bloggers (“Seth Godin has an interesting post today…”), so you might as well go to the source.

Read

By Seth Godin
I’m serious. Smart people with good ideas worth sharing can get a lot out of this exercise.

To help you out, I wrote a lens about the simple details of how to do it.

It’s technically easy and when it works, your idea will spread far and wide. Even better, the act of writing your idea in a cogent, organized way will make the idea better. You can write an ebook about your travel destination, your consulting philosophy or an amazing job you’d like to fill.

Seven years ago, I wrote a book called Unleashing the Ideavirus. It’s about how ideas spread. In the book, I go on and on about how free ideas spread faster than expensive ones. That’s why radio is so important in making music sell. MORE

Slashfood is a site for people who are serious about what they put in their bodies, the blogosphere’s answer to “smart food” books like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Packed with useful food tips, Slashfood tells you what to do with leftover heavy cream (make cream scones, bread pudding, Alfredo sauce, or herbed sauce for fish) or how to feed yourself for $15 a week (hope you like oatmeal.) There are scads of recipes, which can be searched by protein or category (comfort food, organic) or holiday (Thanksgiving, Passover). In a squat-and-gobble culture, Slashfood is food for thought.  VIEW BLOG

FROM TIME MAGAZINE:

This blog delivers daily dispatches from one of the few places where it’s still dangerous to be a blogger: Cuba. Yoani Sánchez, a 38-year-old Havana webmaster and editor, launched Generacion Y as what she calls “an exercise in cowardice,” because it lets her say things she can’t say out loud in Cuba. Sánchez documents the prevailing sense of “endophobia” in Cuba — fear of what will happen after Castro’s reign ends — as well as the discontent of young Cubans eager for change.

There are also oddly wistful reminisces of her youth, like receiving free candy and soda at school thanks to Soviet Union subsidies. Sánchez’s own photos accompany many of the entries, which offer a fascinating and brave peek behind the curtain of a still-closed society.

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