
The Truth Behind Last.fm Story: Techcrunch conned? - boundlessdreamz
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/28/not-safe-for-work-last-fm
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daleharvey
I dont like the implication that techcrunch and last.fm are both equally
innocent victims in this.

techcrunch's traffic no doubt rose well above average during the whole affair,
they have a few detractors questioning their legitimacy, but where are they?
techcrunch deleted every comment that wasnt calling for the death of last.fm
from each post.

whereas last.fm, they may have had some extra traffic, but they have had quite
a few people deleting accounts, 3 posts on the worlds largest(?) tech blog
along with threads on slashdot and a long list of people in their own forum
worrying about being sued for using last.fm.

combine that with the ridiculous practice of posting these attacks on friday
nights and the fact that techcrunch were the only people to hear from this
tipster, its hard to pass off techcrunch as the innocent victim.

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alain94040
When you have a scoop, you publish it. You don't think: "oh well, it's getting
late on Friday, let's wait until Monday when every other news media outlet has
a chance to cover this as well".

So the "Friday allegation", to me, is completely misguided.

The denials have been pretty suspicious actually, at least the way TechCrunch
and the Guardian report them. Over the years, I got used to reading between
the lines.

When a famous athlete says "the allegations about my doping in magazine XYZ
are completely false", it's not a denial. It's a carefully crafted statement
to avoid any legal problems. If the athlete says "I never took drug XYZ", then
that's a much stronger statement.

In geek terms, the first statement is a "nop". The second one is either true
or false (0 or 1).

~~~
jhancock
If you want to be considered legit, when you have a scoop, you investigate
before considering publication.

~~~
cdibona
TC seems to post a fair number of stories that are "too good to check"

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ErrantX
2 big points im not sure he addressed.

\- TC originally _explicitly_ accused Last of handing over the data. Which
everyone agrees now didnt happen. So probably Last's original "TC are full of
shit" response could be considered partially fair?

\- This "source" has just disappeared? That's interesting... not wanting to
sound like I am accusing TC but it's more than a tad suspicious. Has someome
been leading them along? Sounds a bit like it to me!

Otherwise good article :D

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windsurfer
Wake me when it's all over. It's just too much.

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CalmQuiet
The truth is that "there's no story". Because somebody (everybody?) is
stonewalling.

Paul Carr provides a good summary of what (impaired) journalistic-like
investigation has been done so far.

I don't follow Carr, but glanced around the guardian.co.uk page and noticed
that the 3rd "most followed stories" was, "Woman may have kept mother's body
in freezer for 20 years." Ah. Well, I guess Guardian is not exactly targeting
HN readers.

~~~
intranation
The Guardian is one of the UK's biggest newspapers, and is generally known for
being tech savvy. This is a decent "elevator pitch" summing up of the story
for the Guardian's typical audience.

~~~
danw
The Guardian is a good source and certainly understand tech the best of UK
newspapers (they have an api, post the raw data used in articles, host
barcamps/hackdays, etc).

Carr on the other hand is know for bitter opinion pieces, such as this one
about the Le Web conference
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/10/startups-
in...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/10/startups-internet)

~~~
olifante
That piece Carr wrote about Le Web was a hack job -- yet another manifestation
of the undying British national habit of badmouthing the French on every
possible occasion.

Done by professional comedians once in a while it's fun. Done by an entire
nation it's disgusting.

Compared to Carr's, Michael Arrington's article on Le Web seemed like a
balanced critique, and that's saying something.

~~~
Jem
> Done by an entire nation it's disgusting.

One piece of journalism does not equal the opinion of an entire nation.

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fauigerzigerk
What baffles me is how incredibly incompetent the PR operation of CBS is. This
is after all one of the biggest media companies in the world.

Instead of issuing an unequivocal joint CBS+Last denial, they keep stressing
how unimportant a source blogs are. This isn't just a matter of truth but also
one of professionalism. It's yet more evidence that media companies have been
living under a stone for many years and any startup should avoid ending up in
the claws of one of those.

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bep
Great post. I won't hold my breath to see it linked on techcrunch

~~~
jonknee
Great post? He basically said, "He said, she said, he said again, she said
again and we don't don't know what happened." Which is what everyone already
knew.

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cake
Exactly : weak article !

Instead of giving a factual opinion, he's biaised because, well, Last.fm are
his friends and TC are his friends too.

It seems like he doesn't want to be in conflict with any of them.

