SiliconBeat is a weblog written by San Jose Mercury News

San Jose Mercury News

The San Jose Mercury News is a daily newspaper in San Jose, California. On its web site, however, it calls itself Silicon Valley Mercury News. The paper is owned by MediaNews Group...

 journalists Matt Marshall and Mike Bazeley that covers innovation, technology and business in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

Marshall and Bazeley launched the website on August 17, 2004 and update it daily. The reporters have written about beleaguered startups

Startup company

A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets...

 such as Friendster

Friendster

Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Malaysia, KL. The company now operates mainly from the three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore....

 http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2004/09/14/friendsters_troubles.html, investor interest in alternative energy sources such as ethanol

Ethanol

Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...

 http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/02/26/ethanol_in_the_silicon_valley_spotlight.html and new funds from venture capital

Venture capital

Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...

 giants such as Kleiner Perkins http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/02/15/kleiner_perkins_surprises_with_200_million_pandemic_fund.html.

SiliconBeat was developed, in part, as a response to policies at the Mercury News that separate union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

-protected journalists from the non-union Internet staff. Marshall and Bazeley work on the site outside of their day jobs.