techcrunch

Time for Arrington to Leave TechCrunch Behind

By Mark Evans in Blogs, Startups No Comments Tags: , , ,

ArringtonThe tech world is all aflutter today because Michael Arrington has created new a $20-million venture capital fund to invest in start-ups.

Given Arrington and the growing army of TechCrunch bloggers cover start-ups, there is clearly ethical and journalistic issues given TechCrunch could easily write about companies within CrunchFund’s investment portfolio.

A few things: One, the objections over Arrington’s involvement with start-ups as a blogger and an investor are nothing new. Arrington has been happily fishing in both ponds for years, and been pretty clear about his activity. Why would anyone would be surprised by the formalization of something he’s been openly engaged in?

Arrington is a different and unique beast because blogging is a new world with different rules of engagement than journalism, and, let’s face it, the vast majority of journalists don’t make enough money to invest in start-ups even if they wanted to. At best, journalists jump into the start-ups for the remote chance to make some money – and I’m talking from personal experience.

What I admire about Arrington is he seems unrepentant and unaffected by the kerfuffle he has instigated. Call it arrogance, hubris or being king of the world (or, at least, Silicon Valley) but Arrington is completely comfortable in his own skin.

“I don’t claim to be a journalist,” Arrington told the New York Times. “I hold myself to higher standards of transparency and disclosure.”

This holier-than-thou attitude rankles journalists and hard-core bloggers who play by the old style “rules” but AOL seems fine with Arrington’s new venture, although I suspect it will bend over backwards to keep him in the AOL fold as long as possible.

That said, I think it’s time for Arrington to leave TechCrunch. It’s the classic case of not being able to eat your cake and have it too. TechCrunch has been a spectacular success, and Arrington has achieved fame, glory and riches from selling the business to AOL for $20-million.

But if Arrington really wants to take his career into a different direction, he needs to leave TechCrunch behind. It will be difficult because it’s his baby that he built from scratch but TechCrunch is all grown up now, it has a new mega-size owner, and Arrington would be better off completely focused on new projects instead of still hanging on.

The reality is the Arrington brand is as big as TechCrunch so he doesn’t need TechCrunch, even though they are still stuck at the hip. If Arrington wants to be a venture capitalist, it means making difficult decisions, including parting ways with TechCrunch.

More: Kara Swisher has some interesting insight (surprise, surprise!) about Arrington and CrunchFund.

AOL Making Content King Again

By Mark Evans in Media 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

So let’s get this straight: AOL just spent $315-million to buy the Huffington Post, a move that makes it a “next-generation publishing” entity?

First reaction is not why AOL decided to buy Huffington Post but why Arianna Huffington sold to AOL. Of course, there are 315 million reasons to justify the deal but why throw in the towel to AOL when you’ve got the world in the palm of your hand as the world’s largest and most influential online publisher?

It’s not like Huffington needs the money personally or whether the Huffington Post is lacking growth capital. At the apex of her career, Huffington made a strange decision by taking the money and running. Maybe her investors made her do it given the size of the AOL offer, which is five times the HP’s sales. After six years at the helm, maybe Huffington wants to focus on giving speeches and writing books rather than running a fast-growing online publishing company.

Whatever the reason, AOL is placing a huge bet not only the Huffington Post but the value of content to create a lucrative digital platform. For those of you with a sense of history, AOL pulled the same trick a decade ago with a marriage to Time-Warner in the name of digital convergence – and we all know how well that turned out.

With Huffington Post and TechCrunch now in the fold, AOL has swooped up two of the highest profile digital publishers and, along with it, two of the more interesting entrepreneurs (Huffington and TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington) along with it.

All I can say is “interesting”.

The End of TechCrunch As We Know It

By Mark Evans in Blogs, M&A 2 Comments Tags: , , ,

With 24 hours to think about it, the sale of TechCrunch to AOL strikes me as a head-scratcher, even though TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington says it make complete sense. Of all the potential suitors, AOL would not have been on my list. Instead, it would have been headed by a digital publishers such as CNet or one of the large newspaper publishers such as the New York Times or Washington Post looking for a deeper digital presence.

The rise of TechCrunch into one of the technology industry’s most influential players is an amazing story. Started by Arrington, it was just one of many technology blogs battling for attention at a time when the technology market was just starting to re-emerge after the dot-com boom went bust. TechCrunch wasn’t an immediate smash-hit but Arrington’s energy and connections started to make it a must-read. In time, TechCrunch expanded with other Web sites and conferences, while Arrington became an active player in the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

While Robert Scoble suggests TechCrunch’s sales is the end of an era in tech blogging, it’s far more accurate to suggest it’s the end of an era for TechCrunch. Tech blogging will continue with existing players getting stronger, and new players emerging.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch will, no doubt, become a different creature. Sure, Arrington is going to stay involved with TechCrunch but the reality is it’s difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the same kind of involvement when you’re an employee rather than an entrepreneur putting your heart and soul into growing a business. While Arrington will be a good AOL employee for awhile, he’s an entrepreneur who will be lured by other activities and interests.

In time, TechCrunch’s influence will change as well. As much as TechCrunch has a large following, Arrington is the driving force behind what makes TechCrunch different from GigaOm, VentureBeat, Mashable and ReadWriteWeb. He is the TechCrunch brand.

Rather than being the end of an era for tech blogging, the landscape will start to shift and evolve. TechCrunch will likely remain a popular destination but the tech blogging landscape could become a more interesting place now that TechCrunch is part of AOL. With change comes opportunity – maybe even a new Arrington-like blogger with big dreams, great writing skills and a knack for self-promotion.

Not everyone may be a fan of Arrington but you have to give him huge credit for building TechCrunch into an online publishing powerhouse. As TechCrunch moves forward with a new owner, it will interesting to see how TechCrunch changes and, as important, how readers view the new TechCrunch.

Sorry Storify, I Totally Don’t Get It

By Mark Evans in Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

It’s tough being a startup.

Not only do they need to create a product or service that fills a void or need (or, at least, convinces potential users they have a void or need that needs fillings), they have to do an excellent job of marketing themselves to rise above the competition.

This is why messaging is so important. In a world in which people are time-strapped and multi-tasking, startups only get one shot to make an impression. If they fail to capture someone’s attention right away, it’s end of story, even if the service has some value or usefulness.

As much as I don’t like to criticize people doing hard work, an excellent case studies is Storify, which presented today at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

Storify is a real-time curation platform to help journalists, bloggers and experts tell stories with elements of the social Web. It is, therefore, somewhat ironic that Storify does a bad job of telling its own story.

In particular, Storify fails to explain why anyone would want to use its service. Here’s Storify’s explanation about why someone would use it.

“That’s up to you! You can create a story around an event using social media from people who were there, or put together a story using your own Tweets and photos. If you’re a business, you can use it to compile what people are saying about your product. You can also make an online scrapbook from a wedding or party with posts from your friends.”

The problem is Storify is making me figure it out. When I’m checking out a new service, I don’t want to do the work; I want a start-up to clearly explain why they do and, more important, what’s in for me (the user). Storify needs to do a much better job explaining the benefits of using it services other than to “put together a story”. Sorry, that’s not good enough. Instead, it really has to explain why its service is better or different than other social media tools.

Another problem spot for Storify is its corporate demo video. Right off the bat, I want to know what the service does. It has to be clear and well-articulated. I want to quickly think “Yes, I totally get it”. Instead, the video is unclear. It’s hard not to get the impression that Storify was rushed out of the gate too quickly. If you haven’t nailed your messaging, it can be kill any chance of getting traction, even if the service is pretty good.

Storify demo from Burt Herman on Vimeo.

Apple Tablet: Bestest, Coolest, Greatest Thing Ever!!!!

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing 2 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

newtonThe high-tech world goes gaga for new and shiny products. It’s how the industry manages to convince people to purchase things they have already have, things they don’t really need, or things that they’ll probably buy in time.

The marketing mantras include “smaller”, “more powerful”, “mobile”, “better designed”, “faster”, “more capacity” and, of course “more features”. This convinces many people to pay full-price for new products, while getting nothing or pennies on the dollar for their perfectly good old products.

That said, the frenzy of excitement over the Apple Tablet is unreal. In 15 years of writing about the high-tech industry, I’ve never seen the the market froth at the mouth so much. The only comparison I can make is it’s like how teenage girls get when they finally get a brief view of the latest teen heart-throb.

So, it didn’t surprise me this morning to see TechCrunch at the top of Techmeme with the headline that Steve Jobs has apparently been saying that the Apple Tablet “will be the most important thing I’ve ever done”. TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington hasn’t heard these words directly from Jobs but “but we’ve heard it multiple times second and third hand from completely independent sources” so chances are Jobs probably said them….or maybe not.

In any event, the stage is now perfectly set for Jobs to unveil the Apple Tablet (or not) on Wednesday when he makes his annual state of the union/here’s something new and wonderful speech. If Apple does, in fact, unveil the tablet, you should take great care around any Apple stores in the coming weeks because the MacNation will be a rapid state.

If Apple doesn’t launch the tablet, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for Apple. If anything, it will just get the MacNation on more of an alert as they’ll shift their attention to the next possible launch window.

If any event, it’s clear the Apple Table is, in fact, the great thing since sliced bread…or not.

(Note: The photo above Apple’s infamous Newton tablet computer).

More: Mathew Ingram, GigaOm’s freshly-minted writer and part of the mesh gang, has a post about how the launch of the Apple Tablet will likely instigate a fight with Amazon (and its Kindle) for content creators and distributors.

There’s Room for Crappy and Quality Content

By Mark Evans in Media, Social Media 4 Comments Tags: , , ,

I’m not sure what to make of Mike Arrington’s blog post today that “fast-food” content is going to “destroy the mom and pop operations that hand craft their content”.

The biggest question is why this crap vs. quality thesis has grabbed Arrington so violently given the threats he talks about aren’t exactly new. Before the Web became the dominant content vehicle, crappy content was thriving in publications such as People and the National Enquirer. And since the Web went mainstream, crappy content featuring gossip and the antics of celebrities through sites such as Perez Hilton and TMZ has been wildly popular.

Throughout it all, quality content has continued to exist and thrive. Among the most popular Web sites are the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor, which are generating quality content.

I may be biased by the fact I used to be a journalist but my take is this isn’t a one or the other scenario in which crappy content will overwhelm quality content. There’s room for both because there’s an audience looking for different kinds of content.

For more thoughts, check out The Next Web, which argues that quality content will survive because “Audiences aren’t stupid. They know quality when they see it.”

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