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The San Jose Mercury News is shuttering its tech blog, SiliconBeat, which (along with Good Morning Silicon Valley) displayed the insight and cleverness that the Merc News itself is missing.

Co-author Matt Marshall is leaving the Merc to launch VentureBeat, an independent blog about Silicon Valley ventures. As of press time, the site's down, so give the site a moment to recover from first-day traffic. Judging by Marshall's past work, it'll be a blog worth following, at least for the laughs.

SiliconBeat to retire...VentureBeat has launched! [SiliconBeat]
VentureBeat Launches [VentureBeat]