

Michael Arrington’s Dreams of a Blog for True Startups - petercooper
http://peterc.org/blog/2011/381-michael-arringtons-dreams-of-a-blog-for-true-startups.html

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nikcub
We were going to setup a 'minor league' (Michael kept referring to it as that
internally, and it started long before this talk) blog that simply listed
every new startup launch. That ended up becoming Crunchbase.

A whole team were hired to enter the data and keep it up to date, and new
startups are still go into Crunchbase, just the output is not very good. There
was going to be a feed of all new added companies in Crunchbase that would
feature on TC.com.

The prob is that as a tech blog you can't ignore Apple, Google etc. The
audience for news around those companies is 10x what the audience for startup
news is (it is also 10x larger than the audience for more technical writing
is)

The large audience traffic spikes that Techcrunch had through its history were
all from stories that broke news about Apple, Google, YouTube, Twitter etc.

I think the new blogs can do both, just turn the dial more towards startups
and more dev/tech.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I have an extremely unpopular point of view on this, because, unlike the most
vocal of HN, I believe there are some things that can't have a price tag
attached to them. But:

> _The prob is that as a tech blog you can't ignore Apple, Google etc._

Yes, you can, dammit. If you mean, "as a tech blog you can't ignore Apple,
Google, etc. and still make tons of money and eventually sell out to a media
empire", then OK, we have some common ground. I'll go along with that.

But for all of the hundreds of thousands of readers you somehow amass by
following the same stories that everyone else follows, there are -- admittedly
a much smaller number of -- readers like me who are _starving_ for something
that isn't like everything else that's already out there.

I don't care what Apple or Google or Verizon is doing, and I especially don't
care that you're covering it versus anyone else. It'll show up in my numerous
news feeds. It'll show up on HN. It'll show up on Reddit. It'll show up in
Google News. Or someone will ask me about it at some point during the day.

What's valuable _to me_ \-- and, I think, enough other people -- is getting
the information that other people _aren't_ getting. My clients rely on me to
keep an eye on the new and the up-and-coming, and it's getting harder and
harder for me to gather that kind of information, because there are
diminishing reliable sources for it. You guys and Gizmodo and everyone else
all compete for page views on the same silly topics and it's not helping
anyone.

I'll agree that you probably won't get to drive a fancy car by running a
business without compromising principles, but let's not kid ourselves that we
_can't_ run businesses without selling out. Hell, that's probably pretty much
the only reason that anybody reads anythign written on 37Signals anymore --
because they're constantly reminding everyone that they haven't sold out, and
they're successful. (Some of them even get to drive nice cars.)

And for that matter, it would be _lovely_ if, for a change, I'd get to see
someone treat the matter of startups like it wasn't a glamorous Silicon
Valleywood lifestyle. Y'know, like a little bit of attention towards all those
countless shmucks out there that are building products, taking care of
customers, making money, and not dressing like rock stars or scheduling
interviews every week.

~~~
nikcub
Actually I should have clarified, I didn't mean that it is impossible to
ignore the big stories, more that it is difficult to.

Totally agree that it should be possible, but there is a temptation when you
start getting press releases etc. to pump the easy stories out.

------
lifefundr
Funny you should mention this...The Startup Foundry is doing exactly that. A
blog focused only on startups. Check it out, we have gained a lot of traction
and have a relatively large following for being so new (about two weeks).
<http://thestartupfoundry.com>

~~~
arn
So... and this is a serious question.

Let's say you cover the next Twitter or Facebook before they become the next
Twitter or Facebook. Once they explode in popularity, are you going to stop
writing about them? Even though those articles are getting the most traffic on
the site? And tons of speciality sites start appearing just about Twitter and
Facebook. And you even know people from Twitter and Facebook since you
profiled them when they were little, and can get the inside scoop on changes
and upcoming features.

~~~
matthias
A very good question. Will they be really able to resist "Poxxer, who we broke
the news on in 2011 here and here" ...pfft always hate that <a><a><a> start to
a blog post.

If they really would drop startups that made it big they could make it a
feature. Instead of a deadpool, they can add startups to a bigpool, and tease
the major sites with it: "we followed them then, you follow them now"

~~~
lifefundr
Ha! I like that idea! Thanks for that!

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asanwal
Arrington says that writing about startups would not be the best business
decision, and he is probably right - less people interested in startups than
Apple, Facebook, etc as well as a reduced # of advertisers.

How would a "startup-only blog" pay the bills? The Startup Foundry guys -
would love to hear your thoughts.

~~~
g0atbutt
Paul Hontz here (aka g0atbutt), founder of the startup foundry. The short
answer is I don't know...yet. I believe TSF will turn into a profitable
business (and based on the investment offers I've received, other people do
to). I want TSF to ooze value from every article,video, and pic. After that's
taken care of, I believe the perfect revenue model will present itself. Until
then we will keep pushing forward.

~~~
asanwal
Paul - Will be good to see what you guys come up with. One branding thought
(and take this with a grain of salt as we run one site called ChubbyBrain) is
why not lose startup in the name. It gives you room to grow in the future if
you decide you do need to change/alter focus. At present, the name The Startup
Foundry boxes you in. Just an unsolicited $.02.

------
atldev
This post reminded me of the early days. There was a time when all you had to
do to get Michael to review your app was to add it to delicious with a tag he
watched for.

He reviewed my web2.0, vertical search, Google map mashup (so 2005!). I wish I
would have kept a screenshot for nostalgia.

~~~
petercooper
Even being an active commenter on his site was enough. It worked for me.
(Being the doofus I am, I asked him to hold off till I finished the "new"
version of my app which.. never happened ;-))

~~~
atldev
Nice. If I remember correctly, in his review of my site he said it was as ugly
as eBay :)

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dasil003
Arrington will be there for 3 years exactly. I don't really read TechCrunch
anymore, but I'll be keeping my eyes peeled on September 28, 2013 for his new
thing.

~~~
jayliew
Just because the incentives say so, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of him
actually leaving earlier than that date. That said, I'm looking forward to his
new adventure, sooner or later.

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bpeters
Wow, if TechCrunch was just about startups (Everyone of them), I might
actually come back to as part as my daily reading. Until they clean up their
articles and focus on what matters then it is hard to justify spending time on
their site.

~~~
dasil003
The thing is that they are focusing on what matters _to most people_ and
that's exactly the problem.

~~~
nhangen
Are they? Seems to me that they exist to feed the trolls.

~~~
fredoliveira
Sadly I believe you'll come to agree that the majority of mis-informed people
who read a generalist tech blog like Techcrunch could be considered trolls by
the normally informed people who read HN. TC does serve its purpose well - it
just saddens me that the blog's purpose and mine as a reader are not aligned.

( _disclaimer: I worked with techcrunch for a few years, starting in 05_ )

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nl
This is a great theory, but the problem is that the startup world (especially
consumer-focused, silicon valley startups) is so closely tied to the bigger
companies (Google, Facebook etc) that ignoring what they do means you are
ignoring things that directly affects the other companies you write about.

It would be like the Wall St Journal ignoring US politics because it isn't
financial news.

------
Kilimanjaro
I started working on a side project (now abandoned) about startups:

<http://haxiny.appspot.com> (just a mockup)

If I get enough feedback I may start working on it again.

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theklub
I wanted to do something like this and even bought the domain and started it.
Finding new startups daily was a huge chore though. Name was alpharadar.com

