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Born This Way

techcrunch.com

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Re: Born This Way

#21

Post by burgerbrain »

biot wrote: post #7
shantanubala wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the hell I just read. So let me get this straight: the author of the article has an argument with his daughter about Lady Gaga, which leads to his daughter getting her iPad and hijacking his AirPlay, which leads to a "kids these days" type of commentary, which leads to him talking about how he missed his deadline. Which startup is he "obsessively profiling?" Is this a meta…

... which leads to people calling TechCrunch out for the useless article, which leads to him getting all creepy with those commenting, asking for their real names, and implying that finding out people's names is his homework for next week. I, too, used to at least skim almost every article on TechCrunch back when it was all about startups as it was often the first site to highlight a new company or reveal mergers, ac…

I advise that people flag his creepy as shit comments as the inappropriate comments they are.

Re: Born This Way

#22

Post by rhizome »

michaelpinto wrote: post #17

I don't know if you folks are aware of this but Steve Gillmor in his previous career was a record producer — he worked with everyone from Firesign Theater to Grace Jones. That's why is writing is so filled with references to music. You can say what you want about Techcrunch but Gillmor is one of the writers they have who is still worth reading. He doesn't give a damn about chasing page views and if you read in betwee…

Yeah, I know. I simply don't have the time to read between the lines so much in order to find whether or not it's worth reading. There are myriad other tech writers covering the same beat without requiring all that work.

Re: Born This Way

#23

Post by fuzzmeister »

I have always found Gillmor's writing absolutely impenetrable. His posts meander and never seem to arrive at anything resembling a point. I almost feel like he intentionally avoids making points.

Re: Born This Way

#24

Post by Vivtek »

tomwalsham wrote: post #11

It's been my not-so-private view for some time now Arrington has consciously turned into a professional troll. While TC had great value a few years back as a news source, the purchase by AOL was IMO the culmination of a steady decline. I'm not sure if the instigation of flamebait headlines and Gawker level journalism were a natural progression for an expanding media outlet which bases its own self worth on impression…

http://thestartupfoundry.com/ is the reboot you're thinking of. So far, I've really found them good. Way better than TC (natch).

Re: Born This Way

#25

Post by rhizome »

tomwalsham wrote: post #11

It's been my not-so-private view for some time now Arrington has consciously turned into a professional troll. While TC had great value a few years back as a news source, the purchase by AOL was IMO the culmination of a steady decline. I'm not sure if the instigation of flamebait headlines and Gawker level journalism were a natural progression for an expanding media outlet which bases its own self worth on impression…

AOL is the perfect home for (what should be obvious) the TMZ of dotcoms. I'm sure there's a high-to-lowbrow plan within AOL that includes HuffPo becoming their Time Magazine.

Re: Born This Way

#26

Post by robryan »

biot wrote: post #7
shantanubala wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the hell I just read. So let me get this straight: the author of the article has an argument with his daughter about Lady Gaga, which leads to his daughter getting her iPad and hijacking his AirPlay, which leads to a "kids these days" type of commentary, which leads to him talking about how he missed his deadline. Which startup is he "obsessively profiling?" Is this a meta…

... which leads to people calling TechCrunch out for the useless article, which leads to him getting all creepy with those commenting, asking for their real names, and implying that finding out people's names is his homework for next week. I, too, used to at least skim almost every article on TechCrunch back when it was all about startups as it was often the first site to highlight a new company or reveal mergers, ac…

Their startup stuff now is far to brief, it's pretty much just: "new startup x is similar to y but does z differently, I signed up and it looks pretty cool, watch out y!"

Re: Born This Way

#27

Post by gyardley »

Why does snarky title editorializing have this many upvotes? Do we really want this showing up on the front page of HN every time someone reads a TechCrunch post they dislike?

Steve Gillmor is nothing but himself - love him or hate him, his writing style hasn't changed. There's nothing new here to complain about.

Re: Born This Way

#28

Post by nhebb »

No, they haven't jumped the shark. Happy Days started to suck long before Fonzie jumped the shark tank. That episode was just the final straw. TechCrunch isn't that bad - as long as you pick and choose which articles to read. If you're wasting time reading every TechCrunch article linked to by HN, then you have bigger concerns than whether the articles are consistently high quality.

Maybe HN article submitters could do us a favor and bracket the author's name in the title for those of us that have biases for or against certain writers at TC, NYT, etc.

Re: Born This Way

#30

Post by tomwalsham »

schwabacher wrote: post #12
talbina wrote: post #9

I've seen a lot of bad writing online, even in reputable publications. But I've never seen ANYONE taunt their readers in comments like Steve Gillmor is doing now. And I can say something like this since I'm the type of person that spends my weekends reading news and articles. On the Business Insider, when readers ridicule Henry Blodget about his past, he responds politely with links and explanations about the accusat…

His taunts don't even make sense. It seems like he is taking offense to people criticizing his story anonymously, but the way he is asking people for their real names comes off as strange and kind of creepy. And, he isn't addressing any of the (IMO valid) complaints they have about his story.

I'm somehow reminded of this thread: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=646041&cid=2460...

Strange things happen in organizations with a lot of top-down control over people who are attempting to create within their own boundaries.

Bear in mind Paul Carr's "Stunt Resignation" post of earlier: http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/19/aol-way-or-the-highway/

Also perhaps some oddly-referential Quora reference? http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/14/quora-to-oddly-named-users-...

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