CNET takes a friendly jab at me today, making fun of the fact that I had a typo in a middle-of-the-night post on BitTorrent.
That’s ok, I can take a jab from them. While CNET writers were all cozy in bed last night, Om and I were competing to break the Bittorent story. That’s why blogs will win, and CNET will lose.
Benchmark Capital partner Michael Eisenberg wrote a thoughtful post on the nature of blogs and conflicts of interest this morning. He specifically talks about a lot of the issues we’ve discussed recently about TechCrunch:
Techcrunch is not journalism (as if that is objective and conflict free:)). Techcrunch and other blogs like it is insider announcements, opinion and analysis. In fact, I would suggest that Michael Arrington and Techcrunch are closer in genre to Jupiter, Gartner and Oreilly than he is to the NYT or Sydney Herald. And, I would suggest that Arrington is more above board than any of those companies.
As anyone who has been in the enterprise software business will tell you, many of these research houses are implicitly pay to play. When you subscribe to their services and get their analysts’ time then he knows enough about you to put you in the quadrant or report . There are more conflicts of interest at the market research houses than at TechCrunch and they are rarely disclosed.
We had some staff changes at TechCrunch today. Marshall Kirkpatrick’s last day with TechCrunch was yesterday. He’s been with us for six hectic months, and has written a ton of brilliant content that has moved the blog forward significantly. I wish him well in his new endeavors, which you can read about on his personal blog. Marshall says he’s proud of his time at TechCrunch. All I can say in return is that it was an honor to work with him, and I hope he can find the time to come back and write an occasional editorial post for old time’s sake.
A new editor, Natali Del Conte, joins us today. Natali was most recently a reporter for PC Magazine, and a regular on John Dvorak’s Cranky Geeks show. Natali’s first couple of posts are up on TechCrunch already.
I’m not even a woman and I’m offended by CNET’s Top Ten Girl Geeks article, which includes such notable technologists at Paris Hilton, Daryl Hannah and Lisa Simpson (yes, the cartoon character).
Someone actually wrote this post, and then at least one other person edited it. This went through multiple people to be published. Did anyone, at any point, think?
Nice one, CNET. Way to be a leader in our industry.
Daniela Barbosa from Factiva got her hands on the print plate for the Wall Street Journal article about TechCrunch a couple of weeks ago, and she says she’ll send it to me. Awesome! And the video is very cool.
Dave Winer says “Hanging out here with Doc Searls for a couple of days last week was like what I’m looking for, but I want ten Docs, and I want to be around them 200 days a year, developing ideas across disciplines. This is what my soul yearns for, not fame, or wealth, more like fullfillment.”
I “see” Doc every week on the Gillmor Gang and love the guy, but that’s just creepy. 
And of course Dave is already famous and wealthy, so it’s easy to say he isn’t looking for those things.
But I know what Dave is saying. Great late-night conversation with intelligent people is a lot more interesting that the hallway chatter at the latest conference. I’m completely burned out on those 2 minute “how ya doin” talks myself, and I’m taking two months off from the valley to get my bearings again. I’ll be staying at my parents retirement home on a small island in Washington state and working half time. The other half of my time will be spent with my parents, and skiing at nearby Mt. Baker. Yeah, I’ll miss all the holiday parties in Silicon Valley this year, but frankly that’s a plus, too.
