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Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

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Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#131

Post by gonehome »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #129
beedogs wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, stop visiting TechCrunch. I'm way ahead of you.

The mere suggestion that this story is true makes me want to just quit IT, go back to college, and go into a more honest industry. Is this seriously what we're all working at? A complex power play to get yourself rich at the expense of any morals or integrity? How much is /your/ soul worth? We have real problems in the world, but instead we have a bunch of boys with computers trying to rule the world through their co…

Every industry has people within it that are unethical or try to game the system for their own benefit at the expense of others. If anything the technology industry is unique in how much good it has done, relative to the bad.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#132

Post by VonGuard »

glyph wrote: post #128
VonGuard wrote: post #118

Oh... My... God.... Lyons is a fucking god. As a journalist in the valley, I can just say that the first paragraph he's written here hits the nail right on the fucking head. ---"It’s tough being a journalist, especially if you’re covering technology and living in Silicon Valley, because it seems as if everyone around you is getting fabulously rich while you’re stuck in a job that will never, ever make you wealthy. Wh…

But that's the whole point of the article: the whole value of the CrunchFund (and its ilk) is that Arrington (and his ilk) will be a douche on your behalf. If it were just the money, it wouldn't be worth it for the companies they invest in: the amounts are too small. It's an alternative compensation scheme for a PR flack who masquerades as a journalist. There's no ethical way to run the fund, because it would be wort…

Yah, obviously that's the value he's adding. I think it's a zero sum game, however. Shilling isn't going to help a crappy product out in the long term, only the short term.

And it brings up all manner of ethical grey areas: is blogging journalism? Do influencers lose influence when they lose objectivity? What the fuck is an influencer, anyway?

If a journalist is ever an influencer, he or she is doing it wrong...

Buh, I could go on a giant rant here about how journalism is dead, or at least, extremely sick... How am I going to write about people places and events when those people places and events are writing about themselves?

Fortunately, it would seem there is still a consumer for quality, deep journalism on specific topics.

I don't even know what I'm really saying here, anymore... Just that Lyons really hit a nerve. It's super frustrating to be in an interview with someone who makes 10X what you make, and is completely unaware of what's really going on in their industry.... All too common an event.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#133

Post by eaurouge »

rjdagost wrote: post #87
jwwest wrote: post #13

I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet somehow he's ridden on the coattails of Apple's ascent by positioning himself among the fandom as a "champion of good taste". In interviews he doesn't even come off as particularly pleasant.

Siegler falls into the category of "irritainment", entertainment via irritation. He's the type of guy you love to hate and I believe a lot of his popularity stems from that. I can't stand the guy and I think he's completely full of shit. And yet I read almost all of his blog posts. The only other TechCrunch writer that I regularly read is Devin Coldewey and that's because he has interesting articles and actually seem…

"I can't stand the guy and I think he's completely full of shit."

Then please, stop reading his blog posts, it's the only way he'll learn.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#134

Post by deepakprakash »

It started stinking from the time CrunchFund was announced and I couldn't understand all the "moral highground" support bullshit that Arrington was getting - most notably from the TC staff.

Journalism is a lot about perspective - I dont care if you occupy the highest moral grounds, your perspective changes dramatically once you have significant interest and money invested into something you are talking about. What you would normally call a Spade now becomes a Diamond.

Arrington's and MG's responses to the Path issue is proof enough for this - can you imagine both of them so mellow and supportive if Path was not CF funded was not around? I think not. And ohh yeah, I nearly puked reading MG's "rant" few days back. For someone who is so hypercritical of anything on the borderline of wrong (except if its from Apple - or any CF company it seems now), it felt especially nauseous.

To their credit, they do have disclosures - which definitely make a difference - if that is enough, I'm not sure.

Credibility is built by calling a spade a spade. It also tends to take the fast route down if you stop doing that.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#135

Post by mbesto »

beedogs wrote: post #75
martythemaniak wrote: post #17

It's tempting to dismiss this as just e-lebrity gossip, but I think that this kind of rottenness is probably more dangerous to the Valley than threats from Washington or talk of bubbles. If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. If somebody is an unscrupulous douchebag, don't to business with them, don't read their blogs, don't upvote their…

In other words, stop visiting TechCrunch. I'm way ahead of you.

There is nearly 1 or 2 stories a day on the front page of HN from TC.

Please people. Stop. Upvoting. This. Crap.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#136

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

How about a few of us here get together, throw up a wordpress install, and start a self-serve tech/startup site. I've got RobotSays.com. Basically anyone can be an author, they create a guest post, upload their content and their picture, and submit the post for approval and we the editors fix up anything out of place and approve only the best content for the front page. A lot of design blogs allow guest post submissions and it works out very well.

Basically when it comes to tech/startup news this is all I want to know:

1 - when new startups launch

2 - important new game changing features that existing startups are implementing

3 - advice and interviews (Ask me anything) from startup founders

4 - new game changing gadgets coming out

5 - when startups are hiring

6 - when startups are sunsetting and why

That's it, no dirty laundry being aired, no drama, no egos, no kings, no divas.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#137

Post by temphn »

dotBen wrote: post #53
throw911 wrote: post #21

Investors in PandoDaily: Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Chris Dixon, Saul Klein, Josh Kopelman, CrunchFund, Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Menlo Ventures, Lerer Ventures Many of these are top class investors and certainly don't expect a return on their money from a startup tech blog. But they might expect favorable reviews of their portfolio companies when launch time comes or when shit hits the fan.

Exactly, I fear this too. I like Sarah Lacey, and I think she does have integrity. But I can't help but feel this is the investors simply moving up the food chain to protect their startups. Rather than rebutting against the media when their own startups are attacked, they have obtained an inside position at source. I don't believe Sarah thinks this will happen (or she feels she can push back and mitigate) but I'm [sa…

But the BBC gives preferential treatment to the BBC. It's not about to print all of its own internal emails.

All news channels are "biased". You can only integrate and filter.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#138

Post by nextparadigms »

I'm really surprised that Google trusts and would still let MG Siegler review their products before launch (like they just did with Chrome for Android), when 80% of his posts now are about trashing Google. It's like begging for attention from an abusive boyfriend or father: "Come on, MG..just one little nice word about our new product...please?"

They must think that it's better this way, than to give it to someone who already likes Google, because it's more "fair" and he'd be seen as more "objective". Seriously, MG objective? Does anyone still think that by now? There's not a paragraph in his reviews where he doesn't compare anything to Apple, whether it's necessary or not, and of course Apple always comes out on top in his view.

Apple on the other hand gives out their products before release only to people who are totally on their side like Pogue and Walt, so the initial reviews of the product always come out favorable, and they get to influence other laggard reviewers, too.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#139

Post by dotBen »

temphn wrote: post #137
dotBen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I fear this too. I like Sarah Lacey, and I think she does have integrity. But I can't help but feel this is the investors simply moving up the food chain to protect their startups. Rather than rebutting against the media when their own startups are attacked, they have obtained an inside position at source. I don't believe Sarah thinks this will happen (or she feels she can push back and mitigate) but I'm [sa…

But the BBC gives preferential treatment to the BBC. It's not about to print all of its own internal emails. All news channels are "biased". You can only integrate and filter.

I spent 6 years reading internal BBC emails. Can't comment for the rest of the BBC, but nothing comes close to the integrity of BBC News.

>But the BBC gives preferential treatment to the BBC

Go read any BBC news story right now and scroll to the bottom. They even link out to other news sites covering the same story. I can't think of another news website that links to competitors like that.

BBC News certainly doesn't give preferential treatment to BBC.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#140

Post by whatusername »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #48
martythemaniak wrote: post #17

It's tempting to dismiss this as just e-lebrity gossip, but I think that this kind of rottenness is probably more dangerous to the Valley than threats from Washington or talk of bubbles. If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. If somebody is an unscrupulous douchebag, don't to business with them, don't read their blogs, don't upvote their…

If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. For me its just another sign that 'tech' is growing up. Pretty much any industry creates an economic flow, and the flow is a source of power (some would argue the only real source in peace time), and one can harness that power by having influence over the flow. Back when the Homebrew Computer Club wa…

Interesting definition of "tech" that seems to exclude companies like HP, IBM, Atari, Xerox and more that would have had just a little bit more that 1MM/year in flow.
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