Ten Best Financial Blogs: Silicon Alley Insider

After two-plus weeks of counting down, it’s time to unveil my number one choice for the best financial blog. My #1 financial blog meets the three criteria that I set out in the first post in this series:

1.    It makes me think about things I’d otherwise not have considered
2.    It’s entertaining, witty and a bit snarky
3.    It consistently points me to information I would have otherwise missed

For a few years, following Eliot Spitzer’s investigation of equity research and the ensuing settlement, the name Henry Blodget was largely a punchline.  Fast forward a few years and Eliot Spitzer has become the punchline and Blodget has co-founded a financial blog platform that is consistently intelligent, well-written and compelling.

Silicon Alley Insider is a great example of the new model of publishing. A multi-author blog with a consistent voice and theme, Silicon Alley Insider largely covers the business side of the digital media space. 

Recently, Alley Insider launched its second blog property, ClusterStock.  ClusterStock, which uses the tagline Research and Analysis Live, focuses on a more diverse set of financial topics. ClusterStock spotlights interesting financial news and investment research, providing their own take. 

It’s not surprising that Henry Blodget is an effective financial writer. Blodget began his career as a freelance journalist before moving to Wall Street. He has a deep understanding of the Street and an analytic mind. Early in its existence, Silicon Alley Insider gained quite a bit of attention for a post where Blodget questioned the math Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker had used to forecast the revenue contribution to come from the YouTube acquisition. Henry quickly noticed that Meeker had forgotten to divide her numbers by 1,000 when computing CPM rates, so $4.8 million became $4.8 billion.  The post was quickly picked up by the blogosphere and gave Silicon Alley Insider instant credibility.

This spring, Alley Insider hired Julie Hansen, formerly with CBS College Sports, as Publisher and COO, joining Henry and former DoubleClick CEO Kevin Ryan, who serves as Chairman. Together, they’re taking a fantastic blog and turning it into a solid media business. Earlier today news broke that Alley Insider has hired Dealbreaker editor-in-chief John Carney as editor of ClusterStock. Based upon his history at Dealbreaker, we can expect to see more scoops and perhaps a touch more snark.

Silicon Alley Insider and ClusterStock have become must reads for those following the digital media and financial markets. And, together, they’re at the top of my list of the ten best financial blogs.

The Ten Best Financial Blogs:
10. 24/7 Wall Street
9. The Big Picture
8. Dealbreaker
7. Footnoted.org
6. Nouriel Roubini’s Global EconoMonitor
5. TraderFeed
4. Wallstrip
3. Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed
2. Portfolio.com Market Movers
1.Silicon Alley Insider & ClusterStock