Two sets of reasons, technical and political:
Technical
I've been blogging on Radio, a client based system. Meaning my usable archives were always resident on my TiBook. Given that my backup discipline is (ahem) no better than the average Joe, there's an element of risk there. Going to server based gets rid of that problem, and will also let blogging from the road be independent of dragging along a particular machine. The commercial and support status of Radio has also been getting - shall we say - a little tenuous of late, and I've been living in fear of the otherwise necessary OS upgrade or hosting provider changes that would irretrievably break things. Lastly, on heavy months the impact of log file sizes and total data transfer on the fund's site has become notable. So I'm happy to drop all of this into the hands of SixApart, for an annual fee that's less than one month of the hosting bill for the fund's web presence. (And I'll now be able to give Andrew Anker and Co. appropriate kudos or s**t, depending.)
Political
There's been some concern in the partnership here that some of my more politically opinionated content might be inappropriate. That's a reasonable stance, and I curtailed such posts until this move was accomplished. Having the blog on a subdirectory off the main Pacifica Fund site might create the appearance of an endorsement, though I've always specifically disclaimed my opinions as personal only. Removing the blog to its own domain should clarify that, but let me make it specific once again: I speak for myself only. My writings do not reflect the opinions of my partners individually or the partnership as a team, any more than John Doerr's or Brook Byers' political contributions define KPCB.
Due Diligence isn't going to turn into a political and foreign affairs blog. There are plenty of folks on those beats, and I point to some of my favorites over to the left. But I will now be addressing those topics at times, in most cases from my somewhat unique mix of business, technical and new media analysis. It's almost impossible to talk about citizens' media without dragging in politics, or robotics without implicating the defense community, just for two examples. I have my own opinions in these areas, and it's downright disingenous to pretend they don't exist when writing in this medium. If you want to set your expectations, you can file me under 'Militant Middle', somewhere in the vague neighborhood of Michael Totten, Joe Katzman, Roger Simon and Marc Danziger. Neither a blue nor a red, I'm a purple and proud.
And, away we go again...