> Siegler repeats the classic Arrington line that sometimes we criticize our “friends,” but that’s all part of the show. It is, and always has been the veil of legitimacy TechCrunch has traded on. But I know that at my time at TechCrunch, biting friends was only ever ordered, and only when what they were doing was so blatantly bad it needed calling out.
> TechCrunch has never ever once had editorial independence. What Arrington means by independence is he calls the shots. That’s not real independence.
If that's true, TechCrunch basically has zero journalistic integrity and is a puppet rag. Can anyone credible substantiate or dispute this?
This one is actually kind of fun when you consider this: Most feel MG Siegler is the heir to Duncan Riley's TechCrunch writing style. So this is kind of like Future Siegler giving commentary on Present Day Siegler
You know, I come to hacker news and sometimes tech crunch to read about trends in tech, programming, hacking, and the like. For some time now, TC has read more like a soap opera. Between stories of being snubbed for a scoop by founders, to tangles with Arianna Huffington, I cant take them seriously at all. Get over yourselves people...
In my opinion yes. Mashable's audience includes geeks and entrepreneurs but they're branching out to entertainment, music and the internet in general. Meaning much of their audience today are more interested in Lady Gaga than Facebook's valuation, bad analogy as most are these days.
TechCrunch readers are mostly employees of tech companies, startup founders, VC's and any job within this industry. Meaning if you get TechCrunch'd people expect more opportunities to come from the post (also the knock on effect) than just traffic. It really depends what your startup does too. Part of it is your name will be known to all of these influencers. Both of these are vanity uses, really.
TechCrunch will bring you valuable, influential traffic (should do, at least). Mashable will bring you more traffic. If you need early adopters, maybe getting TechCrunch'd is useful but if you need to target a wider mainstream audience then it's probably good to get posted on Mashable.
Saying that TechCrunch is no longer relavant is incorrect but in the end, press is far less important than building a product that users will love.
You know who should run TechCrunch - if he's at all willing to take the job? Saul Hansell.
Former technology editor and reporter for the New York Times, left a couple of years ago to join AOL's seed.com (so he's already in-house) - in general, an old-school newspaper guy who's absolutely committed to high ethical standards. I could not say enough nice things about him. Hell, I might actually read TechCrunch again.
I don't want to sound accusatory, but can anyone give perspective on why this writer left TechCrunch? It sounds like he was at the centre of it all for a while, there.
I think it's important to know why/how he left if we want to make sure the whole article isn't biased.
It's a little hilarious to want to make sure an article about TC and Arrington isn't biased. If what he says here is true--and I'm certainly inclined to believe it given the flagrantly enjoyed conflicts of interest, lawsuits borne from shady dealing, opportunism (moving residence to Seattle), and egomania--that alone would be just cause to depart, and probably on less-than-friendly terms.
Thinking about Arrington reminds me of the story arc on House where the cop goes hard after him for illegal narcotics. At one point he shows up with a warrant at House's residence and finds bags full of Vicodin. He tells House something along the lines of, "Egotistical people think they're smarter than everyone else. I've already seen you willing to skirt the rules. It's reasonable to conclude you skirt other rules too, like writing your own prescriptions."
Given the public, documented things we know about TC and Arrington, it would beggar belief that he did not use his power to trade favors and influence.
Duncan was based in Perth, Australia for most of the time he was writing for TC. I met him at a Brisbane conference around that time, and he was travelling a fair amount (Perth to San Francisco is a LONG trip, even if you only make it a few times a year).
Since leaving TC he's started and sold one business (Inquisitor) and started another (Medacity), and also gone through a lot of personal stuff (which he's been open about on his blog, but I won't bother repeating). So I suspect leaving TC was about focusing on business opportunities and personal life much closer to home, rather than a fall out with Arrington or other causes for bias.
As I recall he left under favorable terms but the relationship between him and Arrington quickly degraded (You can read Gawker's skewed to the negative account of things here: http://gawker.com/5019358/%7CcommentLink%7C)
The irony is Duncan Riley and Marshall Kirkpatrick remain the best proof that the TechCrunch authors and Arrington could move on to a new site and probably do quite well.
Duncan Riley went out on a bad note from Techcrunch. While he may be accurate with this post, I'd be careful b/c he has always had a bad taste about leaving Techcrunch. Regardless, there's no doubt that there are "Techcrunch friends" and "non-Techcrunch friends".
The best part about the title is that if you remove the words former and writer the title works for any TC post as well. It appears the young Padiwan has learned much from his master.
Longtime readers of TC may be saying "there is no way Arrington was calling all the shots the past few years."
Bottomline: TechCrunch was many, many times better when Arrington was callign all the shots. It was apparent. The posts were better. The companies he was writing about were more interesting.
In the past few years, that quality went downt he drain almost in parallel to him writing less. Mike's own posts became a small fraction of TC.
There was little evidence of Mike in the TechCrunch of the past few years.
Arrington seems like a jackass. Why anyone should really care about techcrunch is beyond me. Sure it gets you exposure but there are plenty of much more respectable blogs out there. Also its AOL, they're shit. Not sure if anyone remembers this http://www.thefastertimes.com/news/2011/06/16/aol-hell-an-ao...
I'm sure we'll be better off without gossip on Arrington or techcrunch.
> TechCrunch has never ever once had editorial independence. What Arrington means by independence is he calls the shots. That’s not real independence.
If that's true, TechCrunch basically has zero journalistic integrity and is a puppet rag. Can anyone credible substantiate or dispute this?