This occasional series appears when the week’s readings have been good and should be shared. The themes are strategy, technology, investment and regulation, but sometimes they just cannot be separated.

Gaping Void’s Hugh McLeod has 10 questions for Seth Godin. Seth in my estimation is one of the rare, fluff-free marketers out there.

Om Malik reports on Sequoia Ventures sounding alarm bells for Silicon Valley start-ups. Sequoia asks its portfolio companies, reports Om, to buckle down for what could be the worst economic downturn of their relatively short lives. It is worth mentioning that this report appears after my last post – Only the monetising survive!

The use of quantum cryptography was reported as ‘unbreakable encryption‘. It is worth a mention that that unbreakability refers to the assumption that no single person may have the resources – computing and time – available to crack the encryption, not to any magical powers of the encryption per se.

The EU tries to grease the wheels of consumer spending by introducing better e-shoppers’ rights across the EU states. That there are price discrepancies across the EU is common knowledge. But is it wise to hamstring small and medium sized businesses selling online, by adding new responsibilities (read: costs) to their business? Worth watching.