View from a Farley The Current Events and Opinion Weblog of Chris Farley

TechCrunch

TechCrunch is one of the most visited blogs on the Internet. According to Technorati, it is the number two most linked to blog on the Internet (after the Huffington Post) and is the 1,795th most popular site on the Internet according to Alexa. (I’m not sure I trust Alexa on this one because the site overview also says the site’s average load time is 11.1 seconds, which has not been my experience). Founded by Michael Arrington in 2005 and co-edited by Arrington and Erick Schonfeld, the site is dedicated to “obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies” as well as profiling “existing companies that are making an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new webspace.” TechCrunch was the first blog of what became the TechCrunch network, which now includes CrunchGear, TechCrunch UK, and several others.

TechCrunch is somewhat of a gold standard for blogs. It has a clear focus, clear leadership, and good content. The prolific nature of TechCrunch ensures that the audience doesn’t get bored and the great press TechCrunch gets ensures respect from the community and a steady stream of new visitors (i.e. me). It’s no surprise, then, that startups clamor for Arrington’s attention and a profile. Arrigton’s opinion can make or break a startup.

I’ve found that TechCrunch plays an invaluable role on the Internet. Over the past month, the updates about startups and information about new startups has enabled me to stay up-to-date with the current state of web technology (can be impressive for cocktail parties) and, if I stay on top of things, I can get into a limited beta of a new service. Not bad!

After my post yesterday, I realized that, in one sense, Arrington is the Drudge of the tech world. TechCrunch reaches millions of people (791,000 through RSS alone) and, love him or hate him, Arrington wields a lot of power. He even has a lot of inside sources and will often get a story before anyone else. (Perhaps a byproduct of having a lot of people in the tech world trying to impress him). But the similarities stop there. I am happy to report that Arrington seems to have more journalistic integrity than Drudge, who publishes inflamatory links and occasional “exclusives” where Arrington publishes well written articles with frequent exclusives. If Drudge is The National Enquirer of the world of weblogs, then TechCrunch is the New York Times.

The only problem to speak of is not with the content, but with the website itself. The banner and sidebar ads seem to scream, “AD-SUPPORTED, AD-SUPPORTED, CLICK PLEASE!!!.” I would prefer the ads (which run at steep prices) to be more subtle, but I understand the need for revenue. I would like ad-supported sites to become a minority on the Internet, but I know that a shift like this would not start with TechCrunch, nor would it be viable for TechCrunch to move away from their current ad-supported model. The second sub-problem with ads is a potential conflict of interest. TechCrunch, for example, published a story about Yahoo! today, despite the fact that Yahoo! has a rotating ad buy on TechCrunch. While this post (and others about Yahoo!) have not been particularly favorable to Yahoo! and, in fact, some are critical of Yahoo!, TechCrunch should come up with some sort of arrangement with advertisers to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Since I discovered TechCrunch in January, it has quickly become a staple of my daily blog reading. Its faults are few, its benefits many and it occupies an important niche in the Internet startup community.

In future, perhaps a BlogCrunch would be in order. I’m always looking for new blogs, and the critical eye of somebody in the TechCrunch network might help me out. But that’s just my humble opinion.