The last two weeks has brough a fresh wave of TechCrunch hate. I’ve learned to avoid responding to this stuff in the past because it just draws more attention to it, but tonight a reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald named Asher Moses emailed me and said “First off, great site - i’m a regular reader of yours.” He then went on to say he’s working on a story about the “disclosure scrubbed at techcrunch debacle.”
I took issue with his use of the term “debacle” before actually speaking to me - this tells me everything I need to know about this particular reporter’s slant on this “story,” and basically told him to fuck off. And while I’m not surprised that someone is looking to do a hit job on TechCrunch, I am surprised that traditional media is starting to see TechCrunch as newsworthy enough to attack. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I’ll go through the details around this below, but I want to make one thing very clear about how TechCrunch operates. It seems that I have to make a statement like this every couple of months.
TechCrunch and Conflicts of Interest
TechCrunch is a new kind of publication. We don’t fit into a neat little box like traditional media, who refrain from financial conflicts of interest with their readers and feel that they are therefore above reproach. They aren’t, but they really, really feel that they are, and look down on blogs and other media as the unwashed masses. Yes, I’m grouping them unfairly, but the really good reporters will all soon be on their own anyway, so this will be completely true eventually.
TechCrunch is different. TechCrunch is all about insider information and conflicts of interest. The only way I get access to the information I do is because these entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are my friends. I genuinely like these people and want them to succeed, and they know it and therefore trust me more than they trust traditional press.
I am an active investor, board member and advisory board member with a number of startups. That isn’t going to change. I also write about startups. That isn’t going to change, either. Obviously people like what we write on TechCrunch or they wouldn’t come back. But no one should think TechCrunch is objective or conflict-free. We aren’t. We never have been. We never will be.
All I promise is to give my honest opinion every time I write, regardless of whether there is a conflict of interest or not.
Just like other publications like the New York Times, we take advertising on this site. And sometimes, just like the NYT, we write about companies that may have advertised here. Sales and editorial are now completely separate - Jennifer Rice handles any money coming into the company and I have nothing to say about it, other than a veto if I don’t like the service (I vetoed a payperpost advertising campaign recently, for example). Other than that, there is a complete ethical wall. Likewise for our events - sales are handled by Jeanne Logozzo.
When it comes to my personal investments, they are all stated on the About Page at TechCrunch, and we disclose conflicts in posts. It’s easy to note a conflict when writing about a company I’ve invested in. It’s harder when writing about a competitor because sometimes it isn’t clear if a company is a competitor or not. We try to be overly inclusive, but the About Page disclosure is always there as well.
Traditional media doesn’t like this. They hate the fact that I get information that they can’t get. They hate the fact that I actually enjoy my job and have fun doing it. And because they wield a powerful weapon, their publications, they are going to continue to use that weapon to try to destroy TechCrunch and blogs like it.
I don’t know what else to say - none of this is going to change. Some people seem to think that I either need to shut down TechCrunch, or stop investing. Here’s my answer: No.
The Most Recent Issue
A lot of startups fire off a press release to our email and expect to be covered. That of course doesn’t happen - many great, funded companies don’t get covered on TechCrunch. We decide what to cover based on personal interest and what we think will get page views. Just because your company has a nice design, or raised a boatoad of cash, doesn’t mean you’ll be written about. If we wrote about every company, no one would come to the site. We make choices, and we are judged by our readers.
A few startups that don’t get coverage go ballistic. They leave random irate anonymous comments on the blog (sometimes using the same IP address as previous, non-anonymous comments). They talk about how much of an asshole I am at parties. Etc. For this reason, I have stopped going to parties.
A company called Mothersclick was angry that I covered a competitor called Maya’s Mom. I know the founders of Maya’s Mom from a number of years ago, and in our initial coverage of the company disclosed that relationship. Later, thinking about the fact that I’m not really that close to that person, I removed the disclosure. I do that all the time. At the end of the day, most of my friends are entrepreneurs, and I don’t disclose every friendship when I write.
I guess Mothersclick sent an email or press release or something to us, and was upset when we didn’t respond. I have no idea. But they left a nasty comment in the post above suggesting that the reason we didn’t cover them was because of the “friendship conflict”. They complained to valleywag, who immediately wrote a story about it. The story got up on Digg, where another person from Mothersclick wrote:
Actually, I was involved in a startup competitor to Maya’s Mom and we tried to get prelaunch press from Arrington months ago (around the same time as he first announced Maya’s Mom) but he wouldn’t give us the time of day. Now that our site launched (about 2 weeks ago), Arrington has still ignored us, despite press releases and direct contact…and now he’s pimping Maya’s Mom…which is owned by a former colleague and friend of his.
Fuck Arrington’s biased ass. He as no credibility anymore.
Nice.
But the truth is I’ve never heard of Mothersclick other than when they were attacking me. Hell, I often forget all about startups we’ve actually written about (see the list here and you’ll understand why). I am trying to build a new type of publishing company, one based on insider information, and frankly I don’t have a lot of time to conspire to keep the most recent parenting site off the public radar becausee I worked in the same office as someone back in the 90’s.
My record is clean. I call things like I see them. I disclose financial conflicts. I’ve complimented direct competitors to a startup I founded (see here and here), edgeio. I’ve slammed sponsors (see my comments on ReviewMe). There’s a very good chance I am going to rip apart a startup I invested in when it launches soon if they don’t get their shit together.
If you are a casual reader looking for things to attack, you’ll find them. But if you are a regular reader, you’ll know that I’m a straight shooter, I love startups and I always write what I actually believe. That’s a lot more than most traditional journalists can say, and I’m proud to be a blogger.
how dows this qualify as being away and not reading emails?
switch off all the gadgets or it ain’t vacations! 
Hi Michael
I am one of the people in the last couple of days who has written a slightly negative post on my own blog, and I even titled the post ending with “Picking Straws”. It wasn’t a bashing, it was more like a nudge.
I opted to post it on my own blog rather than a comment.
Half the sites on the internet seem to be running Google Adsense, thus it often gets overlooked when writing about Google that they are a sponsor of a blog, in a big way because they are most likely there permanently.
Also larger publishers earn more from Google per click (though noone knows how much), and I suppose some level of negotiation might occur with the largest publishers.
Thus there could be some additional benefit in being on “friendly terms”.
I picked up on the fact that you don’t mention “Google is a sponsor of this blog” like you might mention about other advertisers.
It is obvious, but if you are trying to achieve full disclosure, it should be included.
I honestly don’t think much of PPP from a business perspective. Currently they don’t pay enough compared to other forms of revenue generation. If someone was barely covering their hosting fees, I am sure it would make a difference.
There are loads of ethical bloggers that are using TextLinkAds. PPP is just a TLA with lots of LSI related terms around it. A much better long term link.
Obviously PPP will work better from both a SEO and Viewer perspective if the content is relevant.
In affiliate marketing it is recommended practice to buy similar domain names to the product you are promoting, and cloak the link so that an affiliate link doesn’t show in toolbar.
the problem frequently with disclosure is that it can end up with the potential customer deliberatly trying to buy the product with their own affiliate link, or even more insanely, just trying to buy the product direct, thinking it will get them a better price.
It is the equivalent to going to the local hardware store, getting 30 minutes of profession advice, and then going to Walmart to save $0.50
Commission Stealing is a fact of life for affiliate marketing, at least for now.
Keep your eyes peeled over the next couple of days. I should have a solution for you to make your own full disclosure a lot less complicated (for free)
Andy: are you a complete idiot, or just lacking any sense of ethics?
“I am surprised that traditional media is starting to see TechCrunch as newsworthy enough to attack”
I’m not, because it was SMH. Us Australians are on the ball!
Michael
This whole buzz around you having a conflict of interest and journalists/bloggers jumping on the bus trying to make sure they also get a piece of the pie (i.e. profiling themselves out of nowhere and hoping to make Digg’s frontpage) just shows how well you built up TechCrunch and all connected websites in the last months and how important you have become to the industry. It almost seems that these days a report on TechCrunch is a key milestone in every Web 2.0 business plan. So keep keep up the good work and write about the tools and websites you like and support the people you believe in. If someone has issues with that they should simply stop reading TechCrunch. Working in advertising I’ve seen many media interest conflicts that exceed what you’re being accused of by far.
Frank
Does the old mantra: “All publicity is good publicity” still hold true though?
Mike,
f**k the begrudgers!
In most cases the attacks are out of petty jealousies. Ironically, this means you are doing something right.
Keep it up.
Found this oh so appropriate artcile: http://corporatecartoons.blogspot.com/2006/11/g-k-chesterton-and-blogosphere.html
@ Paul Montgomery
Andy: are you a complete idiot, or just lacking any sense of ethics?
Different business backgrounds can lead to different perspectives. If a customer steals from your shop, it is bad for business. It is the same online.
Cloaking an affiliate link is like installing mild security measures. The villains are still going to steal from you, but it will deter casual shoplifters.
Can you imagine on a site like Epinions.com if next to every single product link is a disclaimer “This is an affiliate link”
Or maybe the same on shopping comparrison sites?
Or even the simple “currently reading” amazon links. Do you know why these high ranking blogs all seem to be reading Harry Potter for 6 months?
An affiliate link cloaked with a domain name redirect is even the recommended way to include affiliate links in articles submitted for redistribution in major directories.
I am working towards a solution for a number of problems in this field.
Or maybe the search engines will solve all their problems and insist that all commercial links use rel=”commercial” or something similar.
Then the search engines can class all commercial links the same as “no follow”. That would really shake up the industry.
But then would you have to use “commercial” for every link to Google because you have Adsense adverts?
Obviously there is a different perspective if you aren’t earning much from Adsense, compared to if you are earning a healthy 5 figures per month.
Cloaking is highly legitimate for another reason. The commercial link doesn’t give any weighting for search engines to count as a vote.
I did look around Tinfinger, you really should fix your permalink structure before you start adding content.
I assume you are going to add a lot more interactive features.
Mike, take that vacation you announced! Switch off the blackberry, and chill. Maybe watch a film?
But seriously, you have the readership so you’re doing something right. And as for company’s being upset for being ‘ignored’, they should try getting mainstream press coverage - it’s not like it’s any easier. PR is not an exact science - it’s all about networks, and human connections. And persistence. No.1 rule, don’t alienate the people (bloggers / editors / journos) who can give you what you want - however frustrated you are. So good *luck* to startups who practice crunch-bashing. If that’s their PR strategy, they’ll need it.
Publicity..
Andy, I think you’ve spent too much time writing for search engines. You seem to be stuffing a huge amount of keywords into your prose, yet none of it makes sense to humans. WTF are you going on about?
Hi Mike, I know your on holiday, but yuo might just want to call up your techs and ask them why Techrunch is reporting it’s database is down in wordpress.
Hope it’s back up soon, I know what its like with these things..
regards
Al
Mike,
MSM reporters are just like blogger in that they’re human. You felt that this guy’s use of “debacle” was prejudging you and told him to fuck off. That’s a mistake. Why not engage the guy and set him straight? Then if his piece is inaccurate, you can post your rebuttal. Conversation. That’s what blogs are about, right. Instead, he’ll write his piece anyway, minus the benefit of your perspective and then you’ll complain that it’s just another example of how the MSM doesn’t get the blogosphere, feels thretened by it, and wants to undermine it. But his response will eimply be, well, Arrington told me to fuck off, so if his view isn’t fairly represented here, it’s not for lack of trying.
Hi Mike,
I have been an avid reader of techcrunch since the beginning, as well as crunchnotes. I just wanted to say thanks for doing such a great job - consistently. These clarification posts help those just joining your publication because your audience keeps growing exponentially.
One thing to remember is that very few readers have actually been around since the beginning, and they feel threatened and or jealous about this. Although there is no community walls or members area, it is still intimidating to join anything “late”.
My advice to people that always ask me “how can I ever keep up\catch up?”
“shut and read, then participate”
Hi Mike,
Great post and congrats with TechCrunch. I think you are doing an amazing job and I do like the fact that you are opinionated!
At least you stand for something and it is the fact that you are not afraid to piss a few people off by stating your blatant opinions that makes your blog so newsworthy and controversial.
To all the startups that complain about not getting coverage on TechCrunch they should stop bitching and get back to work to make their product newsworthy.
“TechCrunch is different. TechCrunch is all about insider information and conflicts of interest. The only way I get access to the information I do is because these entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are my friends. I genuinely like these people and want them to succeed, and they know it and therefore trust me more than they trust traditional press.”
Everyone please re-read that and think about it whenever you read about companies on this site. Essentially, Techcrunch openly touts that is not about anything but self-interest. The irony is that Crunchers kill the pay-per-post guys as morally corrupt, but TechCrunch is just cyber-whoring taken to the highest level. Spare us the righteous indignation.
Dude, I thought you were on vacation! Run away from the electricity. RUN AWAYYYY!!!
f*ck the f*cking f*ckers, g’dammit!
you go mike, you just GO.
the revolution will not be televised.
At this point, TechCrunch is understood by those who have spurred its growth and insulted by those who fear it. The rest of the world will come around when it’s no longer possible to ignore or bash its importance. Sites like TechCrunch have successfully changed the game for the better.
Dude,
Chill out, you are on holidays.
When you hang out with Loic (Le Meur - France’s top blogger) at “Le Web 3″, have a chat with him about all this and he will tell you that he is constantly under attack for taking position X, Y or Z - because of his reach and visibility. You just grow a thick skin because of that.
I guess that people don’t realize that you are not trying to be nice to your friends by posting about their companies on TechCrunch - or avoiding to shred them - as you did to some of my portfolio cos because the story was not interesting to you, or you thought they deserved to be shredded.
I read TC for beat and opinion, and then make my own judgement. So even some element of bias is fine in that context provided that it is disclosed and/or well known - like we know you LOVE Digg.
If your product doesn’t invoke strong emotions from people then its a sure sign that you have a mediocre product.
The people who come to your site come for only a few specific reasons I think.
1. To find out what competitors are doing and what new technologies are.
2. Readers want to make money on what they see here, by either cloning it or investing in it.
3. To find the latest trends.
If you write about 2 or 3 companies in a field the readers really don’t give a damn about the other 50. The only people that will get pissed off is those living off the ecosystem. Ie getting featured means you get a ton of free publicity and you make more money etc. The bigger the site gets the more pissed off a really tiny percentage of people will get.
Well said. Way to make an address. These issues need to be talked about more openly.
These thoughts alone say it all:
“TechCrunch is different. TechCrunch is all about insider information and conflicts of interest. The only way I get access to the information I do is because these entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are my friends. I genuinely like these people and want them to succeed, and they know it and therefore trust me more than they trust traditional press.”
Your publication is on the top of my list! Thanks AGAIN, for keeping us informed on important information.
@ Paul Montgomery
Andy, I think you’ve spent too much time writing for search engines. You seem to be stuffing a huge amount of keywords into your prose, yet none of it makes sense to humans. WTF are you going on about?
I am not sure which terms you don’t understand. This isn’t the right venue for an affiliate marketing faq, and Google is your friend. There are thousands of existing documents available on the net for any of the terms I have mentioned.
Do you always brand someone “a complete idiot, or just lacking any sense of ethics?”
That is only 2 options, thus it would be assumed you are speaking from experience or extensive research (as an ex professional journalist)
If you didn’t understand some of the terms, you wouldn’t have been able to give only 2 possible outcomes.
There is actually a 3rd option - that you do not have enough knowledge of the subject to give an opinion either about my intellectual capacity or my ethical standards, and this 3rd option is the most likely, based on your second comment.
My writing is generally for my own readership, but I write for multiple niches. Sometimes what you write can’t be directed to be suitable for every reader.
Here is a strange concept for you. Writing not for the masses but for a focused niche.
I don’t write to connect with 80% of people, even 80% of people within my own niche. I am happy with 10%. There are very sound marketing principles in that, but again, this is the wrong venue.
Michael in his post clearly shows that he understands that concept as well.
My Oliver Stone side thinks that you and PPP colluded in the drama that unfolded recently. It also tells me that Yahoo has an office in Nigeria and is secretly bilking millions from people using the “I am the son the late General…” emails. :>
Reality says that you’re doing a great job with TC or else people wouldn’t care. You’re going to make mistakes from time to time. Just acknowledge them when you do and move on. It’s all you can do.
It’s this point of difference I come to Tech Crunch for. I know you’re always going to come up with the goods Mike and I appreciate the effort you go to! Keep that standard of excellence up there, it’s definitely working for you.
As Paris Hilton once said, “You know you’ve made it when people who don’t even know you, hate you!”
Great post Mike. One thing I can say from a fellow tech blogger’s pov, is that I literally can’t keep up with all the email requests I get from companies wanting me to write about them. And you no doubt get way more emails than me. It makes me guilty that I can’t respond to everyone, but the reality is I’d never get any work done otherwise. I’m sure some people get pissed at me for not responding, and even more pissed if I write about a competitor soon after. But unfortunately that’s the nature of the blogging beast - you don’t have time to cover everyone, and also bloggers naturally have topics that interest them and their readers most anyway. Anyway, just wanted to point out that out. As you wrote: “We make choices, and we are judged by our readers.” That applies to *all* bloggers.
Look forward to catching up with you next week, when I’m in SF for the web 20 conference.
I think some entrepreneurs spend too much time worrying about buzz. I don’t understand why a startup who caters to moms cares about being featured on Techcrunch.
Hey Mike,
Why do you get to be crytical of other (Pay per Post) yet when others get crytical of you, you spit the dummy?
I love your site but disagree with your opinions on Pay per post (somewhat) and on the Disclosure Policy. I think you should go throught the Wizard (as Scoble has) and publish the result and your comments on what is wrong with it after actually doing it.
JMTC (and hopefully its okay with you that I have an opinion)
Molly
I read Techcrunch multiple times a day and love reading about new startups, 2.0 and tech news. Its a pity that some people won’t stop bitching. It’s the true sign of success.
Maybe one problem is that the media lines are changing and there aren’t hard & fast “rules” for bloggers yet in the sense of the codified rules of engagement that most people accept with journalism.
Bloggers by definition are not unbiased and (almost) never even bother to claim to be. In fact while many bloggers are complementary to journalism, part of the success of blogging is that they are “anti-mainstream-journalism”. This is not to bash journalists who have a job, often under enormous corporate pressure (esp as the media world continues to sadly consolidate), but rather to point out that this small company must be frustrated that someone with a voice to which people listen (Arrington) is able to influence and there’s nothing they can do about it through “normal channels.” So they fight fire with fire (in their eyes) but this backfires. Although perhaps not, they got a mention didn’t they?
I love reading TechCrunch, digest each story myself and don’t care much about what neurotic losers think of it. Keep up the good work Mike.
I’ve been consistently been reading techcrunch for the last several months and find it to be a great source of information about startups, M&A’s and other breaking news
–
In the words of some gangster rapper somewhere, ‘fuck the haters’
lol?
We both love and trust you, Mike.
Love,
Your Adoring Fans.
Transparency!! Gettit? Man, so sensitive.
I don’t understand what the issue is. Mike Arrington has a very popular website, and he uses the website occasionally to promote his own ventures, or ventures that his friends are involved in. If you don’t like it, don’t read Techcrunch. No one is entitled to publicity. Arrington never (to my knowledge) claimed that he was completely unbiased.
who wrote this post? in other words, who’s the crybaby?
The more readers and influence you have, the more bashers you will get. It’s just the classic case of supporting the “little guy”. Everyone loved TechCrunch at the beginning. But now with your traffic levels and ability to jumpstart new web sites, you’ve effectively achieved “the man” status. And like it or not, everyone hates “the man.”
No one is completely unbiased, no matter how hard we try. Anyway, you’re on vacation so get off the grid!
I second Jeff’s comments: vacation, enjoy.
based on the trackback immediately above, it looks like businessweek may have trashed me. Link is dead now though. odd.
Mike, it looks like Mothersclick needs a time-out. As a parent, how am I supposed to trust a site like that encourages smear tactics and pottymouths?
Mike,
When I read this, I immediately thought of something that another up and comer dealt with three years ago. They also didn’t fit into a conventional mode. They thrived, too.
http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=42768
Michael –
Just wanted to say that I read your blog about 2 - 3X a day, and enjoy every word of it, including those of your co-writers…
If people are bashing TechCrunch, I say
fuck ‘em!…
You are providing a great service — both informative and entertaining — with much integrity to boot…
Keep up the great work,
Sincerely,
-James
(…+ it was your blog that first got me really fired up about Web 2.0…)
Congratulations Michael Arrington. On behalf of the dinosaur media, [DISCLOSURE: I'm a newspaper journalist], let me be the first to welcome you to the fold.
Journalists were just like bloggers when we got our hands on the Gutenberg press 500 years ago. At first we were just writing for our own amusement about the things that interested us.
Over time, people started reading what we were writing and we gradually noticed readers becoming more discerning, more sophisticated, more demanding.
Soon enough we realised we couldn’t expect to retain readers while writing a few friendly pars about an IPO in which we were granted a friends-and-family discount.
As readers complained about these types of practices, we jotted them all down and eventually came up with a code of ethics.
We published our codes and established industry watchdogs, pecuniary interest registers, formalised training, formal accountability and editing standards – not because we felt all high and mighty, but merely because our readers demanded it.
Although you may not realise it, Michael, the future of your blog now depends on you adopting the same market-driven guidelines that govern all dinosaur media.
So welcome, Michael. Glad to have you aboard.
David Higgins
dinosaur media website editor
http://www.smh.com.au
I’m with Dave McClure. “ná lig dos na scaibhtéirí tú a idiú” (never let the bastards wear you down).
Go, enjoy your vacation. And press on when you return.
Sigh.
Just another blogger who believes he invented journalism, in the Dave Winer ‘River of News’ style where personal discovery equates to invention.
The hubris of these people is incredible!
David, thanks for being so patient while us bloggers catch up to you more sophisticated old media types. It’s also clear that your publication did indeed have a bias with regard to me.
I disagree with that, David. Mike and bloggers like him have become successful without accreting all of the institutional infrastructure that mainstream journalism has. Why should they change now? Ethics do not have to be formalised to be effective, and neither does talent. Many journalistic institutions are given no credibility by the journalists themselves. You only have to look at the toothlessness of Australia’s own MEAA and ABA to see that these institutions you speak of so glowingly are nothing more than hot air.
Lecturing Mike on what the future of his blog depends on isn’t going to change his opinion that SMH journalists are arrogant and presumptive.
…However, just documenting a policy on disclosures isn’t enough to drive audience education and blogosphere change. Once Mike takes the small but critical steps of labelling it his ‘Disclosure Policy’ (maybe after carving out the rants) and linking to his ‘Disclosure Policy’ from each TC page, he will have taken one small step for Mike and one giant leap for the blogosphere.
Mike, if you do this it will drive the mainstream media crazy because it’s better transparency than they could ever adopt. Come on, give it a try and let’s see if we can fuel a transparency revolution together…
Stay cool, man.
http://www.calacanis.com/2006/10/05/mike-arringtons-best-moment-making-payperpost-look-like-the-lo/
I wouldn’t call Mike a ‘journalist’ by the true sense of the word. He is a blogger. The difference essentially is this; a journalist reports the news and is required, by ethics, to not judge, discriminate or objectify, but rather give a true accurate account of what happened. A blogger however, isn’t reporting news – they’re largely reporting their opinion on the news.
Just because Mike breaks news, he isn’t a journalist and his blog, Tech Crunch, isn’t a major news publication.
If he openly wanted to write that he “hates Microsoft” or “loves apple”, despite any relationship with either company, he could do so and not be bound by any ethics leading him one way or another.
The fact that Mike, personally (i.e. on his own accord), still decides to make disclosures, no matter how open or direct they are, is good enough for me - his audience. If you don’t like his opinion, or the way he writes, then don’t read Tech Crunch! And especially don’t sit there and bash him, saying “he must do this” or he “must do that”.