Mark Evans

Has TechCrunch Jumped the Shark?

Has the Michael Arrington meteor reached its zenith? It's a question you gotta ask after the Wall St. Journal did a fairly extensive profile on the “Newest Silicon Valley Power Broker”. The story provides some good details about Arrington's personal history, including a stint working for Ottawa-based Pool.com Inc., which resells domain names. What I find fascinating about Arrington's influence and stature is how it all came together for him. Clearly, he has tremendous energy and entrepreneurial drive but why was he able to grab the power broker title rather than a Tim O'Reilly , for example, or a high-profile VC? (Just out of curiosity, was there a “Michael Arrington” during Web 1.0?)

In terms of TechCrunch, Arrington said it makes $120,000 a month in revenue from ads, sponsorships and a job-posting service. He addresses criticism about his conflicts of interest given he has his hands in so many different pies.

“Mr. Arrington acknowledges that he faces conflicts of interest. Companies that paid thousands of dollars to sponsor his 750-person party at August Capital, held two months ago, for example, were promised write-ups on TechCrunch, though the blurbs were marked as “sponsored text.” Some Web companies have called TechCrunch to place ads, “and then they'll ask, 'When are you going to write about us?' ” he says.

“Mr. Arrington adds that he strives to keep his editorial content separate from the blog's advertising and recently hired a dedicated ad saleswoman to try to eliminate potential conflicts. Earlier this year, he also started posting more detailed disclosures about his financial ties to TechCrunch companies on the blog. Such ties aren't uncommon in the freewheeling world of blogs, where writers generally don't adhere to traditional journalistic standards.”

Deep Jive Interests makes an excellent point about the absence of TechCrunch competition (I guess he doesn't count Maple Leaf 2.0 as competition….:)