I’m glad to see Natali Del Conte, a former TechCrunch writer, making serious video. I’m proud to have worked with her.

But seriously, her show is awesome. Catch it here.

So after Scoble and I wrote about Google Reader stats yesterday, all hell broke loose - all the complainers rallied around the notion that the stats are somehow fixed. In particular, some of the feeds are included in bundles that users can add to the reader, jacking up their stats.

First of all, these blogs and other news sites did something interesting to get included in those bundles. Second, the effect is not nearly as great as everyone seems to think. Gizmodo, for example, is included in the technology bundle on Google Reader, but it has just 30,000 subscribers. Competitor Engadget, by contrast, has 345,000. So where did Engadget get those additional 315,000 subscribers? Perhaps they simply earned them.

It wasn’t that long ago that TechCrunch wasn’t on any list at all. We got big by writing about things we care passionately about and linking early and often to good stuff out there on the web, particularly other blogs. If you find yourself in a rut and turning into one of the complainers, ask yourself if you are writing because you want attention, or because you love to write. The ones with passion tend to last over the long haul. If that isn’t you, maybe start writing about something to actually care about. Complaining about not getting attention, or that the success of others isn’t deserved, suggests you have too much time on your hands. Try creating something instead of just tearing others down.

Our TechCrunch Feedburner stat just jumped up by, oh, a million readers. Thanks for dropping by, everyone.

Something tells me they’ll be gone soon, though. Perhaps Google’s tinkering with their new toy?

As far as I can tell, the only reason behind Dave Winer’s post saying TechMeme is a cesspool is to spam Techmeme itself. And it worked - it is now the top story on the site. I also noticed Dave is using TinyURL to link to blogs that he doesn’t like, obviously to avoid giving them any kind of link juice. Seems kind of petty overall, and the ad hominem attack on Jason Calacanis (calling him an idiot) is just childish.

I know Gabe sometimes edits stuff like this off of TechMeme to keep it stocked with real news. He probably isn’t doing that here since Techmeme is part of the story and he’d be criticized. But here’s one vote to get this kind of nonsense off the site.

Not a day after I trash Henry Blodget for touting Google stock at $2,000 a share he write a post titled “TechCrunch to Sell to CNET for $100+ Million?”

So first of all I owe Blodget a big apology. The guy is bright, insightful and dead on with his valuation predictions. Yesterday all I saw was an attempt to grab the headlines, but today I understand that real analysis goes into these models. The TechCrunch valuation is of course dead on (if a little low). Hats off to Blodget.