
Techcrunch empire to expand into seed-stage financing - rms
http://bub.blicio.us/?p=105
======
pg
Hmm, I don't know. How could they get into funding and have any pretense of
journalistic objectivity? And if they stopped being a good source of startup
info, readers would go elsewhere, and they'd lose the original source of their
power.

O'Reilly can go into venture funding without compromsing the original source
of their cred, which is technical books. It would be much harder for a
journalist covering startups.

~~~
rms
But right now there's no pretense of journalistic objectivity. Arrington plugs
his investments whenever it is appropriate now.

I don't see Techcrunch becoming an irrelevant source of startup news just
because they have more of their own investments to plug. The bottom line is
that Arrington does not need to be objective to remain a good source of news,
he just needs to continue doing what he does.

~~~
pg
If TechCrunch were funding startups as well as reporting on them, no
competitor or potential competitor of any startup they'd funded would feel
comfortable talking to them. And since no one would know exactly who they were
funding or about to fund, no one would feel safe telling them anything except
already public information. That would eliminate the scoops that make
TechCrunch what it is.

~~~
staunch
No one seems to care, there's such a dire need for his site and no clear
alternative.

Read his disclosure at the bottom of <http://www.techcrunch.com/about-
techcrunch/>

He's gotten involved with a lot of startups he has profiled and heavily
leverages his position to push his investments.

------
staunch
Arrington has previously declared CNet his Goliath. I think things like
Crunchgear is what he has in mind for expansion.

My take is that he finally realized no one can take over writing Techcrunch
for him and maintain the quality that makes it so great. So he's hired Harde
to work on all the details of implementing his Grand Media Empire Strategy
while he's busy feeding the cash cow.

