The Top 20 VC Power Bloggers Of 2010

A lot of venture capitalists and super angels are not only active investors, but also active bloggers. Below is a list of the top 20 VC power bloggers as compiled by Larry Cheng of Volition Capital based on traffic data from Compete. The metric being used here is average monthly unique visitors during the fourth quarter of 2010.

Compared to last year’s list, there’s been a big shakeup in the VC blogging world. Paul Graham of Y Combinator took the top spot, pushing Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures to No. 2. And four new names appear in the top ten, including Chris Dixon (Founder Collective), Ben Horowitz (Andreessen Horowitz), Charlie O’Donnell (First Round Capital), and Larry Cheng himself. They pushed down Bill Gurley (Benchmark), Josh Kopelman (First Round), Bijan Sabet (Spark)—who are all still in the top 20—and Guy Kawasaki (who was pulled off the list because he is not as active as a VC anymore).

The bigger change is that many VC blogs saw a drop in audience across the board. I suspect this is because many of them stopped blogging as much as they used to. Out of the VC blogs that Compete had enough data on, about 72 percent saw a drop-off in traffic. Only nine VC bloggers increased their traffic by more than 1,000 readers per month, including Graham, Dixon, Horowitz, Mark Suster, and Jeff Bussgang (see bolded names in the list below). You can read the full list of all 73 VC blogs on Cheng’s blog. Which is your favorite VC power blogger and why?

1. Paul Graham (@paulg), YCombinator, Essays (97,227)
2. Fred Wilson (@fredwilson), Union Square Ventures, A VC (81,483)
3. Mark Suster (@msuster), GRP Partners, Both Sides of the Table (53,655)
4. Brad Feld (@bradfeld), Foundry Group, Feld Thoughts (38,821)
5. Chris Dixon (@cdixon), Founder Collective, cdixon.org (20,988)
6. Charlie O’Donnell (@ceonyc), First Round Capital, This is Going to be Big (13,970)
7. Larry Cheng (@larryvc), Volition Capital, Thinking About Thinking (13,215)
8. Dave McClure (@davemcclure), Founders Fund, Master of 500 Hats (11,127)
9. Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), Andreesen Horowitz, Ben’s Blog (10,686)
10. Jeremy Liew (@jeremysliew), Lightspeed Ventures Partners, LSVP (9,344)
11. Bijan Sabet (@bijan), Spark Capital, Bijan Sabet (8,256)
12. Ryan Spoon (@ryanspoon), Polaris Venture Partners, ryanspoon.com (7,828)
13. Albert Wenger (@albertwenger), Union Square Ventures, Continuations (7,469)
14. Roger Ehrenberg (@infoarbitrage), IA Ventures, Information Arbitrage (7,182)
15. Rob Go (@robgo), NextView Ventures, robgo.org (6,934)
16. Josh Kopelman (@joshk), First Round Capital, Redeye VC (6,778)
17. David Cowan (@davidcowan), Bessemer Venture Partners, Who Has Time For This? (5,993)
18. Mendelson/Feld (@foundrygroup), Foundry Group, Ask The VC (5,963)
19. Bill Gurley (@bgurley), Benchmark Capital, Above The Crowd (5,428)
20. Jeff Bussgang (@bussgang), Flybridge Capital Partners, Seeing Both Sides (5,223)

Update: Cheng updated his list, with a new No. 6: David Skok (@bostonvc), Matrix Partners, For Entrepreneurs (14,173)

Photo credit: Flickr/Bryan