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Tech, Crunched: How the go-to site for startup news lost its way

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Re: Tech, Crunched: How the go-to site for startup news lost its way

#2

Post by renewiltord »

They still have a lot of market power. To get placed in them you need to go through a marketer with contacts and that costs quite a bit of money. They publish all this junk stuff but it's just to get more eyeballs. Centralization of this stuff means that these gatekeepers become more valuable. A real pity.

Re: Tech, Crunched: How the go-to site for startup news lost its way

#4

Post by karaterobot »

> But in the end, TC is no longer relevant... Here’s the saddest thing: it should be. Startups haven’t gone away. Any media startup could essentially recreate Arrington’s model and start selling little ads while profiling startups. Fun can be had poking holes in Valley blowhards, and there could be reams of content to be had by telling people how to be successful in startup land. But TC won’t do that anymore.

The author seems nostalgic for the good old days, when TechCrunch was a real news outlet that spoke truth to power, and so on. I guess I only ever remember it as a blog that was close enough to Silicon Valley to act as a hype lever, multiplying the force of hype for the latest Silicon Valley horseshit by broadcasting it to the world. The article confirms that was at least part of what they did, but I guess he believes they also did some good things. I wasn't ever a regular reader, and may have that wrong.

Re: Tech, Crunched: How the go-to site for startup news lost its way

#5

Post by BenoitP »

Ah the good old days of Michael Arrington. TC was my gateway drug to silicon valley produced news, including HN.

He had the habits of pulling stunts like showing up at meetings he wasn't invited to. And the ways of a savant lawyer at extracting information from people. I've always suspected he knew well in advance about the iPad; and he convinced investors to back him up to produce an equivalent product, partnering with a laptop company. The product got shipped, only just at 8-10 times the weight of the iPad though.

He'd have made a fantastic COO, or investor relationship manager IMHO if he had not chosen to do TechCrunch. I hope he's doing well at his cryptofund.

Re: Tech, Crunched: How the go-to site for startup news lost its way

#6

Post by savanaly »

karaterobot wrote: post #4

> But in the end, TC is no longer relevant... Here’s the saddest thing: it should be. Startups haven’t gone away. Any media startup could essentially recreate Arrington’s model and start selling little ads while profiling startups. Fun can be had poking holes in Valley blowhards, and there could be reams of content to be had by telling people how to be successful in startup land. But TC won’t do that anymore. The aut…

"One man's trash..." and all that.

Re: Tech, Crunched: How the go-to site for startup news lost its way

#7

Post by karolist »

renewiltord wrote: post #2

They still have a lot of market power. To get placed in them you need to go through a marketer with contacts and that costs quite a bit of money. They publish all this junk stuff but it's just to get more eyeballs. Centralization of this stuff means that these gatekeepers become more valuable. A real pity.

do they really matter anymore? I remember them from the pre 2010 days but even then it seemed to me like linkedin for startups just without the social network thing, i.e. suits posting boring things. These days I can't remember clicking an article linking there ever.
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