Risk-taking blogs: Living on the edge

A few tech blogs are risky in that they are not afraid to call something ugly, confusing or useless.

Your Daily Awesome

Another unusual site, Your Daily Awesome is risk-taking in that the images are sometimes mesmerizing and jarring. On more conventional sites you probably won't see photos of Buster Keaton riding a donkey, big whites sheets used as a backdrop for real trees or "brain maps". Scans of old books like the environmental classic What On Earth Are We Doing? and dreamy landscape photographs (shot in a large aquarium tank) are also common. In fact, the images are often inspiring because they are so rarely featured on any other sites.

G4 TheFeed

Focused mostly on gaming, G4 -- TheFeed is prone to post techie gossip and game rumors, gadget news and unusual tech toys. It's usually a good source for information about game cancellations and news. The site posted about the Bungie North America split from Microsoft, for example, before some of the other game news outlets.

"Because G4TV.com's TheFeed blog has a heavy gaming focus, anything we post about the 'console wars' between the Xbox 360, the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii elicits an immediate, contentious and emotional response from our readers," says Robert Juster, G4TV vice president of new media and interactive. "We've been angrily accused of being on the payroll of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, often by different readers reacting to the exact same post."

Other risk-taking blogs:

Gary Weiss

Gary Weiss isn't really a blogger -- he's a print journalist and book author -- but his blog is incisive and often cutting-edge when it comes to Wall Street and tech companies. Posts about Overstock.com Inc. caused a stir not only with company officials, but also with readers and other reporters.

Rocketboom

The only video blog in our list, Rocketboom tends to report on the "other side" of the news, the unconventional stories that mainstream newspaper and television avoid, such as a report in July on the fence/wall constructed around Israel.

Share Sleuth

Another investigative blog, Share Sleuth focuses on stock fraud and the illegal practices of companies, partly as a way to guide investors. Recent reports on Xenthanol even led to a Wired Magazine feature story.

Daring Fireball

For an Apple-centric site that reports on new products and software to the Macintosh faithful, Daring Fireball is also not afraid to take the company to task on software foibles.

John Brandon is a freelance writer and book author who worked as an IT manager for 10 years.

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