
Sarah Lacy launches PandoDaily (with former Techcrunch writers) - diego
http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/16/why-i-started-pandodaily/
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harold
_I’ve also raised a bunch of cash from some of the people I respect most in
the industry. This includes: Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Tony Hseih, Zach
Nelson, Andrew Anker, Chris Dixon, Saul Klein, Josh Kopelman, Jeff Jordan and
Matt Cohler, all investing as individuals. Also investing are a handful of
seed funds including the CrunchFund, Greylock Discovery Fund, Accel’s Seed
Fund, Menlo Ventures Talent Fund, Lerer Ventures, SV Angels and Ooga Labs._

Is the coverage of any startup funded by these folks off the table? Seems like
objectivity will be questioned from the start.

~~~
tatsuke95
You're correct. And we will question it, rightfully so.

The days of these people being "independent" media and bloggers are over. They
may have been at one point, but these are cash generating vehicles, designed
to promote product. And, really, I don't blame them.

But let's be realistic. She started what appears to be a blog. Why is there a
laundry list of the who's-who of SV investing in it?

~~~
obiterdictum
Why is it a bad thing? I think any site doing startup coverage needs to
publish the list of its investors as a disclaimer.

~~~
spwmoni
It's not the publishing of the list that the commenter's questioning, but the
fact that they've invested in it in the first place.

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acangiano
I don't understand this trend of leaving RSS icons/buttons out on technical
blogs. Yes, I know <http://pandodaily.com/feed/> is there, but don't make it
an ordeal to subscribe to you.

~~~
lkrubner
Can you name a single RSS service nowadays that doesn't auto-find the RSS
feeds for you? Google Reader, and Netvibes, and Bloglines have all had auto-
discovery for many years. (When I wrote a history of RSS back in 2006, most of
the services I mention already had auto-discovery:
[http://www.category4.com/2006/10/24/rss-has-been-damage-
by-i...](http://www.category4.com/2006/10/24/rss-has-been-damage-by-in-
fighting-among-those-who-have-developed-it/) ).

I think sites like PandoDaily.com make the reasonable assumption that you can
just paste "<http://pandodaily.com/> into your service, and your service will
find the feed. I just tried this with my Netvibes account and it worked
perfectly.

~~~
acangiano
There are two issues at hand:

1) Convenience.

2) Conversion rate (from visitor to subscriber).

Not having an RSS icon makes it less convenient for the user and "out of
sight, out of mind" guarantees you less subscribers as well.

Why less convenient? Well, consider your workflow:

1) Double click in the URL address bar.

2) Copy.

3) Type in or click on your RSS reader bookmark (e.g., Google Reader).

4) Log in if you haven't already.

5) Click "Add Feed".

6) Paste the URL.

7) Click OK.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with it. Just that I find an RSS
icon less cumbersome.

If you are a technical blogger, not having an RSS icon means shooting yourself
in the foot and providing a disservice to your readers (particularly now that
some browsers have stopped autodiscovering feeds and presenting you with their
icon in the bar).

~~~
jonknee
Counterpoint: users who don't know/care about RSS will no longer be confused
when clicking a prominent icon. RSS has awful UX.

RSS usage is small and the usability is bad, don't expect this trend to
change. If you still use RSS, use a browser that integrates it or a plug-in to
do the same. Even better than an icon on the site.

~~~
acangiano
> users who don't know/care about RSS will no longer be confused when clicking
> a prominent icon

Pandodaily is a site about startups. Their audience definitely knows about
RSS.

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iusable
Like Sarah (and the 'valley way') or not, she's really good at what she does -
well written long-form pieces with some sort of historical perspective. She's
been around the block a few times and whether you agree with her or not, she
almost always makes a compelling case for her point of view.

I know that it's kinda common on here to be negative first, but I am glad that
somebody like her is throwing their hat in the ring for 'my' attention. Short,
sensationalist pieces are great for quick reading, but I welcome an
experienced journalist's pen for what I love - startups.

Let the flaming begin.

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rewind
What do the investors get out of this if Sarah is never going to sell it?

~~~
diego
Dividends? That would be a novel concept.

~~~
rewind
Only if the dividends are going to return 10-100x over the lifetime of the
investment.

~~~
jonknee
Dividend paying investments can still be sold, so the dividends themselves
don't have to return 10x.

~~~
rewind
But doesn't that bring us back to the issue of who would buy those investments
off the original investors if there is never going to be a liquidation event?

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samstave
Lets just hope that whatever tool they use to write stories for this site
actually includes a spell check. Or maybe they will do grammar checks on their
articles finally.

I cannot recall a TC article I have read that didn't have any errors.

~~~
jonknee
Even better would be an editorial flow. Unless you want mistakes, writers
should not be allowed to post on the site directly.

~~~
samstave
Agreed, but I dont think TC writers know the definition of those words.

Remember - they are "evangelists" "bloggers" and "technologists" not
journalists.

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Terretta
Feels more like a Tumblr than a professional news site when you first stumble
onto the home page. But if you visit from a tablet, the reflowed design is
clean and easy to read. Unfortunately, the article page design with a vertical
line down the left margin implies every article is a long quote, so back to
feeling like a reblog.

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clowntown
How much space will be dedicated to fawning over Mark Zuckerberg?

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jgrahamc
Is it pronounced pander-daily?

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suking
When I see "I do not want to sell this company" in bold - that means to me - I
_really_ want to sell this company asap.

Do we really need another site covering startups?

~~~
OoTheNigerian
>Do we really need another site covering startups?

Yes.

Nobody covers startups in the aspirational way TC used to do. TC of old made
you want to do a startup. TC of now/RRW/AllThingD etc, tell you about
startups. just like any news site.

~~~
yuhong
Personally, I think Arrington do have it's problems but I would not suggest
the other writers to leave over it.

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googoobaby
They misspelled 'PanderDaily'.

