
Death To The Embargo - ciscoriordan
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/17/death-to-the-embargo/
======
polvi
For me, this is another reason why I feel like TC is dying. Posts seem to be
getting more and more negative (lay-offs, this, etc), less about start-ups,
and simply turning into a personal rant platform. Not sure if this is the
reason, but something is causing traffic to slip over the past few months.

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com/?metric=uv>

Anyway, if I were to launch something, I would not prefer to have my product
story nestled between a piece about Yahoo layoffs, and a rant about PR (sorry
AllFacebook, in this case).

~~~
EastSmith
This is blog trend, not TC thing.
[http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com+readwriteweb...](http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com+readwriteweb.com+gigaom.com/?metric=uv)

~~~
andr
Startups are just getting less interesting. Blogs in general would not be
down, as they are a cheaper form of entertainment, which should be on the rise
in a bad economy.

~~~
vaksel
everything interesting has been done to death. Now the only innovation(and I
don't mean ____ + ____ mashup) will come from companies with a ton of money to
spend on research.

~~~
harpastum
pretty much a spin on "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

I don't believe it for a second. There will always be room for some kids in a
garage to make a game-changing company.

~~~
vaksel
everything that can be invented in the garage has been invented, now its
getting to the point where any real technology needs a ton of R&D just to move
forward

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andr
I've been annoyed by TC lately, but this step is something I applaud. Cutting
out bullshit is always good in my book.

I remember CNet doing a story an year ago, complaining how they were screwed
by blogs that didn't honor embargoes. Big news outlets break those, too (ABC
did, for example). And nobody really wins from an embargo (except PR
companies), so I don't see the hurt.

~~~
tlrobinson
At first glance it seems like an good thing, but as Richard MacManus
(ReadWriteWeb) points out in the comments, TC says they will still honor
embargoes if they get the exclusive. This gives companies the incentive to
give TC an exclusive.

~~~
alex_c
Exactly. I also remember reading allegations (on news.yc, I think?) that TC
has refused to run stories because they weren't contacted before their
competitors.

The motive seems to be to give TC every possible advantage. Nothing inherently
wrong with that, but I don't know if there's anything worth applauding.

Edit: just had a thought. If TC is going to (openly) start lying about
respecting embargoes, what's to stop sources from lying about giving TC
exclusivity?

~~~
tlrobinson
If another site runs the story first then TC can choose not to run it
themselves. And they can immediately reject any stories from a company that
lied to them in the past.

Of course, companies and PR firms can choose to not bother with TC, but
they're the 800 pound gorilla of the tech media. But would four 200 pound
gorillas be better than one 800 pound gorilla?

~~~
netcan
Really a Gorilla game. Seems like PR firms & outlets hate each other & need
each other. What's to stop outlets screwing PR companies? They stop working
with them. What's to stop PR companies screwing outlets? Not working with
them.

It makes sense to threaten retaliation but actual retaliation does not. At
least not without Robert Aumann weighing in.

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Tichy
TC, our heroes - oh wait, they just want to be the first ones to break a
story. For a second I thought they are doing it for the readers...

------
tlrobinson
One "loophole", which only applies to sites that haven't launched, is to tell
the writers when the site goes live. Chances are they won't run a story before
the site is live.

It effectively creates an embargo that can't be broken.

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alaskamiller
All these tech "blogs" -- TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOm, Mashable -- operate
with real budget and hire real people who rely on real paychecks to go through
the weeks. When you're playing with real money, it's not time or place to fuck
around.

When I was working at a big blog, the major takeaway I got was that everyone
will be engaging in an inevitable attrition war. And in that war, many will
pull some crazy shit to get to the top. The sites themselves need to
continuously generate pageviews day after day. They need to posture and
project that they're more and more influential. The biggest offender,
consistently, has been TechCrunch. They publish stuff that has explicit no
publish requests, they break embargoes that hinders around real businesses'
launch times, and they censure over petty beef with another tech blog.

Oh, don't forget the fact that TechCrunch is no longer about startups -- it's
the new CNet, without the class and without the journalistic integrity.

~~~
staunch
That big blog you worked for was Valleywag...and you're complaining that TC
lacks integrity.

~~~
brandnewlow
There's a difference between class and integrity.

Valleywag has no class what so ever. It's sleazy and happily so.

However they do have integrity. Paul Boutin's a real journalist. They, and I'd
argue most of the Gawker writers, bring an outsiders view of the world to
their coverage that's sorely lacking in a lot of the news. Deadspin's the same
story. It's sleazy, low-grade and base. However they are honest and very
serious about their facts.

What you choose to cover makes you "classy" or not. That's a genre.

How you cover it shows whether or not you've got integrity.

~~~
brandnewlow
Surprised no one called me out on this.

~~~
staunch
Yeah. I was wondering if you were serious or just playing devil's advocate.
Apparently at least 16 people thought your semantic swordsmanship passed for a
real defense :-)

~~~
brandnewlow
Well I was serious. I've no way of knowing exactly how many times VWag burned
people, but they're at least going after people in a way that few are. Like I
said, its sleazy and low, but they're going after people, not puffing up their
buddies projects and shrugging their shoulders when people complain.

~~~
staunch
I think it's pretty obvious that they both lack integrity (in the complete
sense of the word).

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shafqat
Startups should not be using PR firms anyway. Talk to them normally, build a
relationship, see them in conferences, act human. That works, really. We
haven't spent a cent on PR, and have done just fine and got all the coverage
we could have asked for.

I think its such a shame when the founders are evangelizing and spreading the
word. That's where all the passion is, and it comes through. When it comes
filtered through PR, you lose that excitement and buzz.

~~~
alaskamiller
I think that's kind of a naive outlook. Bigger startups -- moronic sounding,
yes -- can utilize PR firms to for effectiveness and efficiency. It's
basically outsourcing whoever guy you put on "building relationships" and
"encouraging press" to a professional firm instead of getting someone to
bumble around with it.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Not everything can be effectively outsourced.

------
samwise
I personally like all the writers at TC having worked with most of them in the
past. They never broke an embargo and we're quick to response to any requests
i had. The same can't be said for #%@&*& (name redacted to protect the
guilty).

You just have to be clever and give each blog a different angle to cover. You
also have to approach different blogs every now and then rather hitting up the
same source each time.

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dmix
Theres a thousand other things fighting for my attention online. If Techcrunch
can't keep it then I'll go elsewhere, its simple as that. Will this change
things? Probably not. I don't think the average readers care about exclusives
or getting news the minute it happens.

Techcrunch, recently, has simply not been worth more then skimming headlines
for something that stands out. (1 in 10?)

~~~
brandnewlow
You should create a single serving site at howmanystoriesstandoutontechcrunch
and just post the number each day. They'd link to you for sure.

Heck. Maybe there's a spot for a tech news site that just posts a single link
each day to the one story worth reading. No archives. Just one story each day,
Drudge-style.

------
trezor
I don't really see why people care that much about techcrunch. Granted I'm
just a regular hacker, not doing startup, not having any plans to do so, and
generally care very little about startup news.

I just want interesting technews. Give me links to some new awesome tech, with
demos or videos showcasing why I should be awed. Give me links to new awesome
tech which makes my life simpler. Give me links to fancy programming tricks
which while technically awesome or impressive, would never survive a code-
review. Give me stuff that feeds the _hacker_ in me.

In that respect techcrunch has generally been of very little interest to me,
and lately I haven't even bothered reading stories from techcrunch at all.

Is the focus on techcrunch around here (because I see noone else on the web
caring) because it has historically been PR friendly to startups?

