What defined business in 2009? Bankers and bailouts, for one. The proliferation of social media. A radical shift in the ways we find and accept jobs. A redefinition of the real estate, credit, and media markets.

In a word, 2009 was full of fluctuations. And nobody covered, commented on, and analyzed them better than the 75 blogs on our list.

This year’s 75 Best Business Blogs cover a variety of categories, from accounting to SEO. Those we selected have useful and timely content. They’re updated regularly. Their commentary, analysis, and tips are consistently relevant to their target audience.

Most importantly, they’re some of the highest-quality blogs in their respective fields. Every single one of these blogs is worth reading. We categorized them by topic to help you find those most relevant to your field. If you find something missing, or want to show off your own blog, we encourage you to comment.

Bloggers, keep up the good work!

ACCOUNTING

1. re: The Auditors
Covers the business of the Big 4 accounting firms. Essential updates on accounting industry regulation, auditing, strategy, and more. High-quality independent journalism and a wide scope of corporate accounting issues make re: The Auditors an outstanding resource.

2. CPA Success
Written by the Maryland Association of CPAs, the blog helps accountants succeed in their careers. Chock full of useful tips, news, analysis, and even accountant humor.

ADVERTISING

3. AdvertisingAge
Advertising Age’s prolific blog covers ad industry news, campaigns, and commentary. Digest it daily to stay up on the ad world.

4. AdFreak
Another magazine-sponsored blog, this time from AdWeek. The bloggers present ad images and clips on each post, followed by a background and commentary. They have a penchant for finding really interesting content, about ads, companies, and people in the industry.

BUSINESS: GENERAL

5. The Atlantic Business Channel
News and current events coverage related to business, the economy, and government. The bloggers offer good, comprehensible analysis and commentary on daily events.

6. Stanley Bing’s Blog
Stanley Bing is a business writing legend. He says it like it is—and sometimes it’s damn funny. Don’t miss his blog.

BUSINESS LAW

7. The Conglomerate
Five law professors weigh in on law, business, education, and a variety of other topics. Their expert analysis on business law is not only helpful for understanding events from a legal perspective, but also very readable.

8. Corporate Governance
In the Harvard Law School’s corporate governance and financial regulation blog, more than 100 experts talk about regulation, strategy, M&A, governance, and more. Get the latest on such legal topics from the leading minds in the industry.

BUSINESS MEDIA POLICE

9. Beat the Press
Economist Dean Baker debunks economics media claims on a daily basis. His posts are short and easy for non-economists to understand. The fact that he has so much to debunk makes this an essential media supplement.

10. Brad DeLong
This Berkeley economics professor provides deep-level understanding on what’s behind modern debates, media claims, and claims politicians make. It’s a good place to find insight and understanding on today’s debates.

CAREER

11. The Career Doctor Blog
A useful Q&A/advice column covering a variety of career-related topics. Chances are, a few of them affect you. The Career Doctor offers cogent, useful advice for people facing the gamut of career concerns.

12. Brazen Careerist
Penelope Trunk’s unique, brilliant, and direct commentary on both her career and personal life make this blog a classic. You’ll react to something in her blog, guaranteed.

CONSUMER ISSUES

13. Consumerist
The definitive source on customer service, how-tos, shopping, investigations, any other consumer-rights issues.

ECONOMICS

14. Econlog
Economists Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan, and David Henderson comment on a wide range of subjects, from finance to history. They get readers to think about how economics affects each topic.

15. Marginal Revolution
Economists Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen talk economics, markets, trends, and about other economists. A good place to read about current news from an economics perspective.

16. The Becker-Posner Blog
Nobel laureate and University of Chicago economist Gary Becker and US Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner analyze the current economic situations and national policies. These two heavyweights offer an unparalleled perspective on current policies and economic events.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

17. Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
Full of tips, discussion, videos, and other resources for new entrepreneurs. TPE sets the standard for informing and supporting its venture-hungry readers.

18. The Entrepreneurial Mind
Professor, entrepreneur, and consultant Jeff Cornwall has a birds-eye approach to entrepreneurship. Catch up on issues, statistics, findings, and policy relevant to entrepreneurs here.

GREEN BUSINESS

19. Triple Pundit
Triple Pundit covers news, commentary, and analysis about the triple bottom line, which has to do with sustainable business and the environment. Covers a range of relevant issues, from what companies are greenest to new products to foreign affairs. Consistently insightful and interesting.

20. EcoGeek
EcoGeek covers the space where technology meets nature. And tech innovations help make a more environmentally-friendly economy. This blog is a useful resource for keeping abreast with green developments that might affect your industry and business.

FINANCE: GENERAL

21. The Big Picture
Author, financial commentator, speaker, and businessman Barry Ritholz and others share brief, informative daily commentary on finance and the economy. Written clearly enough for anyone to understand, but with unique, informed insights.

22. Naked Capitalism
A variety of contributors, some from other prominent finance blogs, make Naked Capitalism a one-stop shop for current events and in-depth analysis relating to events in the financial world, most of them having to do with the government and policy.

23. Zero Hedge
One of the ultimate insider finance blogs. Zero Hedge regularly shares the financial news that the mainstream media is too slow (or involved with outside corporate forces) to catch. Written anonymously and in the spirit of informational freedom, Zero Hedge is a must-read for anyone interested in raw truth. Note that some information isn’t for financial novices.

24. Calculated Risk
An excellent place to get your daily smart finance news commentary fix. Concise posts, good links, smart commentary make this a finance blog classic.

FINANCE: LINK BLOGS

25. Real Clear Markets
Nicely laid out information on finance, economics, and business, largely covering good content from the mainstream media. Easy to get good articles, fast.

FINANCIAL CRISIS

26. Credit Writedowns
This excellent blog evolved into something even better in 2009. Edward Harrison and other bloggers cover finance and economics in informative daily posts. Refreshingly, they don’t neglect the foreign sector. Their credit crisis timeline is a unique and useful resource. This year, their compilation of healthcare links is another excellent place to figure out what’s going on.

27. Baseline Scenario
Written by economists, entrepreneurs, consultants, and financial experts—all in three talented people—The Baseline Scenario comments on today’s financial crisis issues, from the national debt to healthcare. They use evidence and sound reasoning to comment on topics of the day.

28. Financial Armageddon
As the blog’s name suggests, this isn’t an optimist’s view on the financial crisis, or how it is being handled. But author and blogger Michael Panzner cuts through spin to cover the American situation in all its hardship, social, economic, and financial.

FRANCHISING

29. The Franchise King
This blog shares news, contests, commentary, and tips for franchisers. His posts are consistently short, interesting, and relevant.

FREELANCING

30. Freelance Switch
Chock full of useful tips for freelancers, this blog speaks to workers who do it themselves. Bonus: Comics, contests, and anecdotes.

GENERATIONAL

31. GEN Y

Young Successful Entrepreneur
This entrepreneurially-focused blog, written by Gen-Yer Jun Loayza, describes one young entrepreneur’s journey from startup to success. Loayza, a talented writer, offers tips, stories, and useful details from his own experiences.

32. GEN X

Generation X Finance
This useful blog covers financial issues that apply to Gen Xers. Focused on topics like establishing a career, building wealth, and getting out of debt. Generation X Finance is full of useful tips, analysis, and commentary.

33. BABY BOOMER

The Boomer Blog
Though it’s focused on a wider variety of topics than just business, the Boomer Blog covers marketing, retirement, finances, small business, and economy-related issues relevant to the age group. Its Daily Digest, which covers news that affects boomers, is also a very useful resource.

HUMAN RESOURCES

34. Gautam Ghosh
HR consultant and social media strategist Gautam Ghosh offers interesting comments on people, organizations, and using social media in an HR content in this diverse, fascinating blog.

35. Evil HR Lady
Quite simply the best, most blunt HR Q&A out there.

INTERNATIONAL

36. International Business—General

Global Edge
Two dozen contributors cover both international and country-specific business/economic issues. Their unique reports cover everything from Tehran’s first hypermarket to the fine art industry as a global economic indicator. An excellent place to catch up on general business happenings across the globe.

37. Africa

Timbuktu Chronicles

Emeka Okafor’s incredible range of business experiences include starting companies, co-running a food/beverage company, managing a PE fund, and directing the 2007 TED global conference in Tanzania. In Timbuktu Chronicles, he covers entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, technology, and more. His inclusion of individual people’s stories and entrepreneurial ventures lets you know the African business world through individual stories. A valuable blog.

38. EU

A Fistful of Euros
Commentary on economic, business, and current news in the EU. 15 authors cover both individual countries and EU-wide news, as well as commentary on more remote countries, like the US.

39. Middle East (specifically the UAE)

Emirates Economist
News, links, and analysis about the UAE economy. The perfect English-language destination to get your Gulf news fix.

40. China

China Briefing
This blog offers China-related business news with professional, magazine-quality reportage. Its sister publications, Vietnam briefing and India briefing, are also worth reading.

41. Latin America
For Latin America, we came up with a tie. The first blog, Latin Americanist, isn’t quite as business/economy-focused as we’d like for the purposes of this list. The second, Double Handshake, focuses only on Latin America-China relations. Both, however, are excellent.

Latin Americanist

Nine contributors cover business, politics, and culture in Latin America. Coverage is consistently good, as are the links to current news. An ideal place to load up on Latin America, in English.

Double Handshake
Covers news and business related to the China-Latin America relationship in a succinct, relevant, and entertaining way.

42. India

WATBlog
Web, advertising, mobile, technology, funding, startups…WATblog covers a substantial portion of India’s business world. How does it do so? With news, reviews, interviews, tools, and features. It’s a satisfying and readable mix.

43. Australia/NZ

The Australian Small Business Blog
Author and small business expert Dr. Greg Chapman’s useful, concise posts help small business owners market, strategize, grow, and manage their small business. An excellent digest to consume a few times a week.

INVESTIGATIVE

44. Deep Capture
The people behind Deep Capture want to expose how regulators, politicians, the media, and intellectuals have been influenced by other powerful people and institutions. That translates to posts with topics like SEC complicity in naked short selling, what hedge funds are manipulating markets and how, and the false media story around the death of Bear Stearns. Get behind the lies—or just find a different version of the stories you read.

INVESTING

45. Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha isn’t so much a blog as a financial website containing a bunch of blogs, but it’s so good that we had to include it. It’s a one-stop shop for stock market analysis, opinion, and commentary. They publish around 250 fresh articles per day, so whether you’re interested in commodities or day trading, you’ll be sated.

46. Abnormal Returns
Excellent daily investing and finance links, many to quality blogs and new media sites. You’re bound to find something interesting and perhaps lesser-known through a daily peek at the links here. Also includes commentary on current investment trends and events.

MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP

47. Management Craft
Consultant and management expert Lisa Haneberg shares perspective and advice on issues that managers face. Her posts, which appear several times a month, should be read slowly and savored.

48. Leadership Now
Leadership Now uses book reviews, articles, links, research summaries, multimedia, and more to give you a complete leadership resource. Its material helps you establish and solidify the mentality that you need to lead effectively.

49. The Harvard Business Review Blogs
Maybe this one is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be on this list. Then again, it’s so good that it should be on any list. The folks at the Harvard Business Review provide timely, crucial information and analysis on issues facing all managers and leaders.

MARKETING

50. Duct Tape Marketing
Geared at the small business crowd, this essential marketing resource offers news, tools, tips, and commentary relevant to SMB. The site also has an excellent podcast, books, and other resources.

51. Seth’s Blog
Seth Godin is a guru of sorts. His frequent, to-the-point insights make you both ponder your own outlook, then improve. Utterly essential.

52. eConsultancy Blog
The eConsultancy blog offers useful tips, information on trends, and news related to the digital marketing space. Especially useful for digital marketing and ecommerce professionals.

53. Copyblogger
The go-to resource for copywriting, content marketing, and successfully building an online presence. Follow Copyblogger regularly to increase your skillset in these areas.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

54. DealBook
The New York Times’ DealBook consistently has superior details, background, and reports on the M&A space. Not that this should be your only resource, but it’s definitely one of the best.

PERSONAL FINANCE

55. Get Rich Slowly
GRS helps you save money, time, and headaches by compiling tips, how-tos, lists, and anecdotes. The blog is not only a quality daily digest, but an excellent resource on topics ranging from savings accounts to insurance.

56. The Simple Dollar
As its name suggests, the Simple Dollar offers simple ways to manage your personal finances. Blogger Trent Hamm, after having his own financial meltdown, created this useful resource to explain and explore how to simplify your personal finances. Book reviews, an advice column, and link posts round out the content.

PHARMA/HEALTH

57. Pharmalot
Written by longtime pharma journalist Ed Silverman, Pharmalot covers pharma news, trends, and issues. It’s really well-written, and could be considered a niche newspaper. A quality resource.

58. Café Pharma
Daily links to news relevant to those in the pharmaceutical business, especially salespeople. You’ll find a large selection of news headlines, most from the mainstream media, that will keep you up to date with the pharma biz.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

59. PR 2.0
PR agency principal Brian Solis writes about PR and social media news, trends, and events. His posts are short, and he updates frequently, making this a good blog to read in tasty bites.

60. Naked PR
Blogger Jennifer Mattern calls Naked PR a “spin-free zone…dedicated to cutting through the crap in online public relations…issues.” That’s just what she does, and she does it well. Her bluntness refreshes and informs.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

61. The Cranky Product Manager
Entertaining and well-written, The Cranky Product Mananger documents the experiences of a fictional product management professional at a software company named DysfunctoSoft. For a fictional story, CPM’s posts sound mighty real, but put that aside for now. Her frank, honest, snarky posts make for a fun read, whether you’re a product manager or not.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

62. Fear No Project
Bruce McGraw combines observations, experiences, and analysis to address issues that project managers face. It’s the kind of blog with in-depth posts that appear several times a month. Savor and absorb his posts—they’re good.

REAL ESTATE

63. Bigger Pockets
Covers real estate news, investment, marketing, sales, technology, and landlord issues. Useful articles both for seasoned pros and beginners. The blog also has a good networking component, via forums, groups, bulletins, and a resource directory.

64. Altos Research
Want to know the current state of the real estate market? Catch it at Altos Research’s blog, which relays real-time real estate data. Charts and reports give you hard data to back up your next move.

SALES

65. Score More Sales
Sales consultant, author, and coach Lori Richardson shares sales tips and tricks in a readable, engaging blog. She weaves stories into her tips, making them more accessible.

SEO

66. Search Engine Land
This journalist-led SEO news and info site offers professional, compelling industry coverage.

SMALL BUSINESS

67. Small Business Trends
This complete small business resource offers a host of excellent tips for the SMB crowd. In addition to tips, they write book and product reviews, research roundups, host a radio show, and host forums. It’s a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs.

68. Small Business Brief
Small Business Brief “fetches” small business news, which means it provides you with useful SMB links almost every day. Scroll down to find the quality article that suits your needs. They have lists for Sales/Marketing, Finance & Legal, Website development, entrepreneurship, and management. A great place for a regular news fix.

SOCIAL MEDIA

69. Mashable
Perhaps the ultimate social media resource, Mashable covers the gamut of social media news, tips, lists, and how-tos. It’s an extensive social media resource that you should bookmark and check at least weekly.

70. Chris Brogan
Tech and social media expert Chris Brogan blogs about social media, online marketing, new technology, digital trends, ideas, and more. It’s an interesting take on social media by a highly-regarded opinion leader. He hosts good videos, too.

SPORTS BUSINESS

71. Sports Biz
Writer Darren Rovell reports on sports news from a business perspective. He covers the gamut of sports business, from endorsements to promising young players. An excellent daily read.

TECHNOLOGY/IT

72. Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a vast resource for IT pros. Its posts, which appear multiple times per day, cover hardware products, software tools, infrastructure, industry trends, security and more. The business section is an especially good place for IT managers to catch up on the latest.

73. TechCrunch
News from the hardware/software/IT space, including new products, IPOs and funding, companies, campaigns, research, people, industry news, and more. Consistently good and on top of the tech game.

VENTURE CAPITAL

74. Ventureblog
August Capital partner David Hornik updates this blog several times a month with analysis, commentary, and insights for those in the VC world.

75. A VC
Longtime New York City VC Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) covers company moves, public policy, investor behavior, media, tech, and a whole lot more. His brings insight and a human touch to all of his topics.

Bookmark this on Delicious

Some blogs truly define today’s business voice. These blogs represent a healthy mixture of independent and mainstream voices, prominent academics and small business owners with equally strong opinions.

We compiled a completely biased sampling of our 50 favorite blogs, sorted by category. The categories are neither based on anything official nor are representations within them equal. For example, we have included a ridiculous number of finance and investing blogs, an industry where coverage truly stood out this year. It is possible that we have forgotten other categories.

However smattered the designations on this list, rest assured that every single one of these blogs is worth reading. If you find something missing, or want to show off your own blog, we encourage you to comment.

Here they are, categorically sorted, and alphabetically ordered:

Advertising
Dim Bulb Author and advertising critic Jonathan Salem Baskin picks apart ads and marketing campaigns, then offers advice on how to do them right. Hint: Watch the branding.

Business Leaders
Jonathan’s Blog Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is arguably the best exec blogger in the ’sphere.

Blog Maverick, Mark Cuban’s blog. Commentary on various issues that Mark Cuban is interested in. Makes readers feel like an insider to the upwardly mobilized.

Business Travel
The Economist’s Gulliver is not only one of the best business travel blogs on the Web, it is one of the only ones.

China
All Roads Lead to China provides economic and business analysis and news from China, by an American expert.

Customer Issues
Church of the Customer covers customer evangelism. Useful for both companies and individuals.

The Consumerist looks at business from a consumer-rights standpoint while remaining remarkably readable and informative.

ECommerce
Practical ECommerce lives up to its name, offering really useful advice and tips for those with online presences.

Economics
Marginal Revolution: Tyler/Tyrone Cowen and Alex Tabarrok author one of the Web’s essential economics blogs.

Freakanomics Blog at the New York Times: The authors of Freakonomics present…more Freakonomics! This econ blog is a treat.

Economics Roundtable offers useful daily econ- and business links.

In Beat the Press, Economist Dean Baker points out flaws and missteps in economic reporting, often giving valuable insight in the process.

Entrepreneurship
Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: Mike Michalowicz offers invaluable tips, resources, and networking/exposure opportunities for new entrepreneurs in this innovative blog.

Environmental Sustainability
The Oil Drum gives thorough peak oil and enviro-news opinion and analysis.

Financial News and Investing
Steadfast Finances offers down-to-earth tips and coverage of finance, for everyday folks.

Financial Armageddon: Author Michael J. Panzner covers the carnage using media and official outlets.

Seeking Alpha compiles reports and commentary from more than 2,000 contributors, making it a information hub and one-stop shop for an assortment of financial information.

Market Movers at Conde Nast Portfolio: Felix Salmon blogs on the financial industry all day at this blog. And he does a mighty good job of it.

Credit Writedowns offers the best credit crisis coverage on the Web.

Calculated Risk: Lending, mortgages, indices, and cutting-edge macroeconomic coverage–Calculated Risk covers it all, one step ahead of the rest.

Financial Times’ Alphaville Deftly filtered real-time coverage of market activity, from the UK but covering the US and EU as well.

Abnormal Returns is the perfect place to browse updated, smartly filtered links on investing.

Franchising
The Franchise King Blog is an invaluable resource for franchisers and those interested in the business.

Generational Blogs
These were tricky to sort out. No single blog covers all of a generation’s issues, but some blogs address those issues while primarily focusing on some other aspect of business. Here are our picks:

Baby Boomer: My Retirement Blog
Gen-X: Startup Addict and Gen X Finance
Gen-Y: Employee Evolution

Human Resources
HR Bartender integrates current news, events, and tips into a comprehensive and elegant HR resource.

HR Wench offers frank, pithy, and entertaining advice on real-life human resources issues.

India
Trak.in’s Arun Prabhudesai shares startup, Internet, entrepreneurship, and other business buzz from India.

Influence Science
Incentive Intelligence covers the sometimes-mysterious world of incentives, rewards, and influence in a very readable and interesting blog.

Innovation
Endless Innovation’s lengthier, insightful posts on innovation inspire and inform.

IT/Tech
TechCrunch: Stop here first for tech news.

Silicon Alley Insider provides essential snark about Silicon Valley.

The Business of IT provides carefully considered posts relevant to IT departments across the board.

Job Search Issues
Unemploymentality gets to the heart of the unemployed, well, mentality.

The Wall Street Journal’s Laid off and Looking follows eight laid-off MBAs through their job searches, offering insight from the ground.

Leadership
The Practice of Leadership offers inspiration, motivation, and tips for leaders.

Marketing
Duct Tape Marketing: John Jantsch continues to do small business marketing well in this classic blog.

Copyblogger shares a wealth of useful information on copywriting for online marketing and other businesses.

Seth Godin’s Blog: The Oracle of Marketing speaks.

Opinion (Various Topics)
The Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk offers a columnist’s wit and insight on a variety of work-related issues.

Coyote Blog provides thought-provoking commentary on a variety of business-related topics by an independent thinker.

Pharmaceuticals
Pharmalot Pharma journalist Ed Silverman covers the industry with pleasing professionalism.

Private Equity
PE Hub makes private equity not only interesting, but cool.

Public Relations
Edelman Blog: PR guru Richard Edelman writes about PR and reputation management.

Regulatory Issues
SOX First focuses on Sarbanes-Oxley management and compliance, but covers a wider range of issues.

Social Networking
Riveting Rosie talks about social networking, advertising, and a variety of other topics from an insider’s perspective.

Thought Leaders
Harvard Business Review’s Monitor Talent Group Blog provides stimulating posts by today’s great thinkers.

The Becker-Posner Blog provides impressive, thorough commentary by two eminent minds: Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker and US Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner.

Women
Learned on Women talks trends, insights, marketing, and leadership for women and business.

We're giving away an Apple Nano this week, right on time for the holidays!

This blog is teaming with goWholesale to find out more about how you use the internet to source products and services for your business.

The Apple Nano will go the person that gives us the best tip on using the web to source products for their business.

* Leave a comment below with your answer.
* You may only enter Business Pundit's Christmas 2007 giveaway once. You can enter different giveaways, but you can only enter this one once.
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* Entries can be submitted until Monday, December 10th, 11:59PM EDT.

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LOL! You would be nuts to pay that for this site. But if you are nuts, I'll tell you where to send the check! Pop on over to Business Opportunities and see what your blog is worth. The calculation is based on the recent Weblogs Inc. deal.

I am a big fan of your site. I am currently a first year MBA student at (removed), and I think I am getting more from your site than I am from my MBA. I sent your post about management being like math to my father. My father is pretty close friends with Charlie Munger, and he decided to forward along your post to Mr. Munger. Mr. Munger absolutely loved it. He sent a copy of the post to Warren Buffett and his entire family. Please keep up the great work.

Needless to say, Charlie Munger's witty comments have made me smile time and time again, so I'm glad I could do the same. And I've sent a tuition bill to the guy that sent me the email.

If you missed the post he was referring to, it is here.

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