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TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

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Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#41

Post by ary »

lachlanj wrote: post #34
staunch wrote: post #3

TechCrunch's days were numbered the day Arrington sold it to AOL. The honeymoon rarely lasts more than a year, so this is right on time.

100%. So how long for arrianna then?

Don't make the mistake of confusing the word most with the word all when considering what happens in mergers and acquisitions. The application of natural selection to these situations is apt.

Consider both TechCrunch and The Huffington Post pre-sale to AOL. Which one would you have said made sense and which would you have said not-in-a-million-years? The TechCrunch acquisition was to literally buy credibility, whereas the Huffington Post purchase was to resource a strategy. Arianna Huffington makes AOL stronger in the traits that it has self-selected for. She's going to be just fine.

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#42

Post by jasonallen »

Am I the only one who sees the victimization going on here? MG says "AOL promised not to interfere" and yet now "they may break their promise to us". Meanwhile Michael went and created an investment fund that clearly conflicts with TechCrunch interests.

I think AOL tried to have it both ways. With mainstream media revealing the distasteful arrangement, however, AOL has to protect their bigger interest: publishing.

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#43

Post by dspillett »

adolfojp wrote: post #13

"This site is about to change forever and we’re in the total fucking dark." "If AOL tries to bing in their own Editor-in-Chief to run TechCrunch, it will be a colossal fucking mistake." I can't believe that rant went live. Somebody is getting fired.

I can believe it. I expect the sacking was decided at least some days ago. This smacks of trying to stir up some trouble on the way out when you are sure you are going to be pushed but haven't been officially told to go yet.

As a side note (and a snide note), I do find it really quite sweet that in a couple of the pages linked to by the current article they seem to believe TechCrunch has something to do with the concept of professional journalism.

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#44

Post by mbreese »

In otherwords: something might happen tomorrow, and it might involve the ouster of Arrington from TechCrunch. But we don't know, and no one is telling us. But we like poking bee hives, so we're going to publish this rant anyway...

Between this and the Carr post from a few days ago (http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/crunchfund/), they really do seem totally out of control over there... which is far worse.

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#45

Post by officemonkey »

franze wrote: post #21
adolfojp wrote: post #13

"This site is about to change forever and we’re in the total fucking dark." "If AOL tries to bing in their own Editor-in-Chief to run TechCrunch, it will be a colossal fucking mistake." I can't believe that rant went live. Somebody is getting fired.

i always like it when people paint a big "fire me now"-sign on their forehead. it's bold, it's cool and he will find another job anyway (or maybe start a startup instead of just bitching about them)

You can almost see this as testing the limits of the post-Arrington TechCrunch.

If the post is taken down, it will be re-blogged by every other tech pundit from Gruber to Dvorak (hello, Streisand effect.)

If AOL repremands MG Siegler, then everyone will know what happened. Either he'll do another post, or he'll blog about in on his personal blog and it will take off through the bloggeratti. If he's forced into silence, then it will leak out through friends and colleagues.

If AOL ignores it and does what it wants, then the writers at TechCrunch will at least know what they can get away with. It's the Mindsweeper's Dilemma, you can't make any progress among uncertainty unless you take the first step.

MG Siegler probably thought (correctly, I think) that he's not at risk of getting fired and the uncertainty is killing morale.

If he is fired, he knows some other tech blog will snatch him up.

So, it may indeed seem unprofessional, but I give him a lot of credit in trying to "manage up."

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#46

Post by dspillett »

cookiecaper wrote: post #15
alanh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s starting an investment portfolio called CrunchFund. The worry is that TC will write stuff that is pro-"CrunchFunded" companies and slam their competitors.

OK, so AOL doesn't want the potential conflict of interest and that's all there is to this?

For what I can tell AOL were quite happy with it when it wasn't widely reported (or they were to thick to notice it, or the board just OKed its investment into the fund without any due diligence checks at all - lack of due diligence being the most likely explanation as generally ignorance trumps stupidity and stupidity trumps malice).

They backtracked when other outlets got hold of the story and started talking about it. The people being back-tracked on, and their friends & partners, are not happy. As a result several prams now contain less toys than they once did.

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#47

Post by erikb »

Kudos for being so open. I was always impressed how open and truth commited these guys actually are. And like most people I love that.

But I also think this article reads a little naive. Probably AOL has other plans for the future. Probably since before they acquired Tech Crunch. All that is and never was about the community or the company. Maybe they wanted to buy the talent Arrington. Maybe they just wanted to shut them up. But I think activating the community now will not help at all. If they are together in a VC fund with Arrington they maybe bought him off to help him let TC die. It's exactly what I would do, if I wanted to kill them (and if I would have the money, of course). First buy the company, make Arrington more rich. Tell everybody nothing changes. Wait until everybody calmed down. Then try to motivate Arrington to do something else and give him some more cash to do it. Then wait a little more. Then turn off the lights and close the doors.

edit I see someone disagreed with that. Why not argue instead of downvote? I really would appreciate your opinion. (Leave the downvote, that doesn't matter. I only want your thoughts!)

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#49

Post by cowboyhero »

I generally like Siegler's stuff but he's so far down the rabbit hole now he can't see the reasoning behind concepts like 'bias' and 'disclosure.' Worse, he seems to be fully believe these things don't, or shouldn't, apply because he works in "new media."

It concerns me that a so-called bastion of tech reporting aspires to have all the ethics of TMZ or your friendly neighborhood penny stock newsletter pump and dump scam.

Re: TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

#50

Post by Feinux »

officemonkey wrote: post #45
franze wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i always like it when people paint a big "fire me now"-sign on their forehead. it's bold, it's cool and he will find another job anyway (or maybe start a startup instead of just bitching about them)

You can almost see this as testing the limits of the post-Arrington TechCrunch. If the post is taken down, it will be re-blogged by every other tech pundit from Gruber to Dvorak (hello, Streisand effect.) If AOL repremands MG Siegler, then everyone will know what happened. Either he'll do another post, or he'll blog about in on his personal blog and it will take off through the bloggeratti. If he's forced into silenc…

agree with you. MG Siegler doesn't worry about that,
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