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I now have been covering startups since a month. Its a hard and daunting task with so many startups poping up every day from all corners of the world. I thought it would be worth while to cover other such blogs, see how they are doing and if they have a special angle to it. So lets jump to it.

Techcrunch is definitely not the oldest blog to cover startups but it sure owns the no 1 spot with a Google page rank of 8 and Technorati rank of 9. Techcrunch generates around 1,10,000+ visits and 1,35,000+ pageviews a day, and has around 3,42,000 subscribers. Techcrunch is edited by Michael Arrington and now spans a network of blogs ranging from domain focused ones to location centric ones. Techcrunch covers startups in general and other technology news and has become famous for its spicy and crunch reviews. Techcrunch recently scored a big win for the blogsphere by attracting an executive from Fox Interactive Media, a large media company.

GigaOM is the largest blog to focus on broadband and VoIP, but now also cover online games and Web2.0, with a Google pagerank of 8 and Technorati rank of 56. GigaOM does not openly provide feed and traffic stats but safe estimates would put the monthly pageviews in excess of 1million and feed subscribers in excess of 1,00,000. GigaOM is edited by Om Malik, who prior to becoming a full time blogger was a senior writer at Business 2.0 magazine covering telecom and broadband stories.

ReadWriteWeb was founded in 2003 and initially focused on covering startups in the evolving new web, where any one could publish his opinions and thoughts and where little voices do matter. After a while it broadened its scope and now covers web technology in general. ReadWriteWeb has drafted a niche of analysis and disection of new and upcoming technologies. The blog is edited by Richard MacManus, who prior to committing full time to ReadWriteWeb was a consultant for web companies in the Valley.
ReadWriteWeb has a Google page rank of 7 and Technorati rank of 62. It has around 52,000 feed subscribers and generates in excess of 1 million pageviews (estimated, since i couldnt access the stats from sitemeter) a month.

Mashable is the largest social networking blog with Google page rank of 7 and Technorati rank of 95(I actually noticed them getting into the top 100 a few days back). Mashable generates in excess of 1million page views a month, and has around 94,000 subscribers. Mashable specially focus on startups in the social networking area and has a neck of somehow getting to the news before most other people in the block. Mashable is edited by Pete Cashmore who recently launched Mashable France and Mashtracker to track the buzz around the blog.

VentureBeat focuses on financial, business and VC aspect of startups. It was founded in 2006, but is an offshoot of SiliconBeat which was founded in 2004. VentureBeat is edited by Matt Marshall who has spent more than 12 years in journalism working for publications like Washington Post, WSJ and San Jose Mercury News, and has authored a book called “TheBank-the Birth of Europe´s Central Bank and the Rebirth of the European Power”.VentureBeat has a Google page rank of 7 and Technorati rank of 559 (Matt if you read this do claim your blog on Technorati).
VenturBeat generates more than 1 million page views from more than 100,000 unique visitors a month. We dont have data on subscribers.

All these Blogs have more in common then just covering startups, amongst which the few aspects are:

• All the blogs are diversifying (via launch of new blogs in other categories and for multiple languages) and focusing on becoming a full fledge publishing companies of the new era.
• All the editors left their day jobs to focus exclusively on their new media publishing venture, and
• All the blogs rely on Federated Media for CPM based advertising and sport 125 x 125 pixel sized ads on the sidebar(with the exception of VentureBeat).

It is clear that the blogs covering startups are in fact startups in their own market segment. They compete with each other from news tips to page views just like startups in any other sector. While we are at it, how about having a feedburner network of feeds for startup news, just like the Venture Capital Network ?. This will enable all the players to grow the market together and will strengthen the community.