This is what happens when you expect people to work for you for free.
As a former Techcrunch intern I can attest that they do pay their interns. He may have been an exception though.
TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
41–50 of 108 posts
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
"There are two sides to this story." I completely agree. There's probably many (more than two) sides to the story. I was just clarifying what I thought to be a misunderstanding of a comment. (I did say "I think his point was not X but Y"). I wasn't endorsing his position. I personally have no interest in wasting time, neurons and keystrokes passing judgment on what level of "punishment" (including naming/outing) for…
The thing is that there is a more or less guaranteed discussion of your stuff on HN if it gets posted on TC, and vaksel has more than done his bit to promote TC on HN, so I can really understand he feels taken in a bad way. Another option is that vaksel was refused a write-up by that person, in which case I really understand why he's mad. As for the frequency being a factor, yes but only after it turns out that TC ha…
" and vaksel has more than done his bit to promote TC on HN, so I can really understand he feels taken in a bad way."
Interesting. I wasn't aware of vaksel's TC promotion here. I can (now) see why he felt as he did.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? This is what happens when you pay interns with awesome experience, rather than cash?
You're selling that as if it were so hard to get experience and get paid at the same time. I know this won't be popular, but Microsoft pays interns more than most people get paid hourly.
and the amount of networking and exposure available to you working as a writing intern at techcrunch is invaluable.
i'm not sure why everyone gets in a twist over free interships -- nobody's forcing you to participate. if everybody thought it was a rip-off, nobody would apply, and employers would be forced to pay the interns.
the fact is that the competition for an internship is so intense, that TC is giving a net benefit to the person who works there, even though they aren't getting paid monetarily.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? This is what happens when you pay interns with awesome experience, rather than cash?
You're selling that as if it were so hard to get experience and get paid at the same time. I know this won't be popular, but Microsoft pays interns more than most people get paid hourly.
Comparing Microsoft to Techcrunch? Have you looked at how much money each company has in the bank?
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#45In the full knowledge that this opinion will be unpopular: the crime here is not selling coverage. The crime here is selling coverage obviously while being an intern. The media, including Techcrunch, sells coverage as a matter of routine. Sure, we'd be happy to cover your new gadget, but we'll need an exclusive on that. The exclusive will be worth, at the margin, 50,000 uniques we won't lose to Endgadget (and the att…
The difference is that an exclusive actually does have more news value. By definition, it's news.
If Bob Smith creates a tablet computer which runs Flash and cures cancer tomorrow, that has some news value N1 and some pageview value P1. If a particular media outlet gets an exclusive on that announcement, then it has news value N2 and pageview value P2. delta(N1, N2) is zero -- it is still news tomorrow no matter how many people report it. (See: iPad, which was apparently a story of staggering importance despite having everybody and their dog say the same things about it.)
delta(P1, P2) is nonzero. Hilariously nonzero. If Steve Jobs had a fit of stupid and had given somebody the exclusive for the iPad, that would probably have been worth hundreds of millions of page views. Page views are, of course, exchangable for money. We build entire industries on that fact.
News media outlets are willing to trade things of value for exclusives. For example, PR flacks value embargoes. TechCrunch will give you one if, and only if, you give them an exclusive, despite their professed hatred for them in all other contexts. That should imply to you that TechCrunch is getting something from the exclusive -- and it isn't delta(N).
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#46In the full knowledge that this opinion will be unpopular: the crime here is not selling coverage. The crime here is selling coverage obviously while being an intern. The media, including Techcrunch, sells coverage as a matter of routine. Sure, we'd be happy to cover your new gadget, but we'll need an exclusive on that. The exclusive will be worth, at the margin, 50,000 uniques we won't lose to Endgadget (and the att…
The difference is that an exclusive actually does have more news value. By definition, it's news.
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Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#47Michael, your apology is meaningless without a very clear statement that you have learned something too, and that is not evident from your post.
If TC has posted guidelines on how its editors should behave and this person transgressed those guidelines then that's one thing.
But if TC does NOT have posted guidelines it would be comforting to know that those will be put in place after this incident, and that you will make those guidelines public.
Your lesson is that you can't just give anybody access to the TC cms without making sure they have their obligations and the consequences of transgressions spelled out.
Transparency is not spilling the beans after the fact (that's just damage control), it is making sure that the rules are known by all parties.
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#48Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#49I know he must be protected in some way because he's not of legal age but I do not agree with deleting all his posts.
The writer has written several blog posts about milestones of important startups. I feel like I'm losing a sense of history here (though we can still find it on other blogs, google cache, etc).
Here are some of his articles that do not exists anymore:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/23/twitter-acquires-mixer-...
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/square-angels-mayer-cro...
Re: TechCrunch Intern Admits To Asking For Compensation For Writing Posts
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that an exclusive actually does have more news value. By definition, it's news.
If Bob Smith creates a tablet computer which runs Flash and cures cancer tomorrow, that has some news value N1 and some pageview value P1. If a particular media outlet gets an exclusive on that announcement, then it has news value N2 and pageview value P2. delta(N1, N2) is zero -- it is still news tomorrow no matter how many people report it. (See: iPad, which was apparently a story of staggering importance despite h…
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