I don’t care either way what FM’s biz model is. If they want to try these new advertorials involving writers I’m fine with it (it’s obvious it’s a sponsored ad, as was People Ready).

I might be fine with the logic that goes into saying the “People Ready” campaign is not at all ok, but the Hakia campaign is — provided that the logic isn’t “People Ready” wasn’t OK because it’s MSFT.

What winds up happening is whether Michael looks arrogant in his posturing or not, he’s at least consistent and not appearing to be hypocritcal.

I don’t understand how Battelle gets to choose “Hakia is OK/People Ready Isn’t” (and again, Battelle is running the ad on his own site). This appears to be inconsistent and hypocritical. If someone can clear the appearance of that up for me, i may be reached at robert.seidman @ gmail. com

Charlie, in the TV business advertisers are fixated on demographics like 18-49 with HH income greater than $100,000. Sometimes a show with relatively low ratings can stick around (say 30 Rock) because it does well in that demographic while another show with similar or better ratings (say Studio 60)gets axed because none of the rich people are watching.

And sometimes, in a free market, which you’re all for, that’s the way it goes. I submit to you that at least here, between San Francisco and San Jose, wherever you want to draw that economic wealth line, TechCrunch (and Michael) won that high end demographic. I think you would agree with this too without argument. I don’t think you need to disclose this on any piece you write about Arrington.

Why are Denton, Scoble, Battelle, Om, etc all so fired up about People Ready but the campaign running at: http://searchforbettersearch.com/ is fine and this ad has not been pulled off of TechCrunch. If any of you — you, Battelle, Denton, etc. can explain why that’s any different at all (other than it’s not Microsoft), fine, I am game for being schooled and learning. But if none of you can explain it, Arrington is well within his rights to tell you all to pound sand.

Wow. Just wow, indeed. Read the Wired article before going off half cocked.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-07/ff_arrington?currentPage=all

“His aim is to become the premier technology news site on the Internet, one that goes head-to-head with CNET and potentially with other technology news sites, including Wired.com. Arrington figures he can get by with just a few dozen employees. “With 25 to 30 paid writers against CNET’s huge cost base, they won’t be able to compete,” he says.”

No big deal. That’s the free market. Let’s compete.

They came to the blogging table a day late and a dollar short, after gutting their actual reporting staff, which is reduced these days to primarily reprinting press releases. The HP scandal demonstrated that while they could easily report what people called them up to tell them to print, once the story required in-depth exploration, they fell far behind the “real” news organizations in their ability to take it any further.

And their arrogance shows even in Mr. Cooper’s comment here:

“You’re competitive and dream of supplanting CNET one day.”

Wow. Just wow.