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The Techcrunch Circus: Losing Focus?

This blog, and many, many other “2.0 tech” blogs owe much of our inspiration and popularity to Techcrunch, who’s reporting popularized both the ethos of web 2.0, and the concept of writing about it. I’ve been a long-time TC reader and fan.

TC’s “obsessive profiling” of new companies was what made it an icon of the web 2.0 movement, but as of late, growth seems to be pushing TC into the territory of MSM “lifestyle” site, complete with circus tent celebrities, filler posts, and inoffensive reporting.

MC Hammer - a great buzz building mechanism around TC20 (it got my linkback, didn’t it?) but is a move like this turning tech into a circus?
Unopinonated reporting - many TC articles are now “just the news,” without the opinions and insight that used to make TC more than just a PR tool.
Focus Dilution - there’s been a number of Apple/iPod articles this week, which seemingly escaped from Crunchgear. Why?

Has TC gone mainstream? Should true 2.0′ers stick to reading Uncov? Probably not. There’ll always be a place in my blogroll for TC, but its starting to get pushed down the list.

arrington, mchammer, michaelarrington, tc20 techcrunch

2 Responses to “The Techcrunch Circus: Losing Focus?”

Jimmy | May 11th, 2007 at 11:40 am

With things like the “Shannon Terry debate”, and TC’s unabashed tendency to break confidentiality embargos… I would have to agree with you.

On the Shannon Terry post, myself and others were censored repeatedly for saying Arrington was in the wrong. We weren’t being rude or saying anything wrong, just disagreeing. He took our comments out, but left up every single comment bashing Shannon Terry in an effort to make it look like he had nearly unopposed support for needlessly trashing somebodys reputation.

On the confidentiality embargos, Arrington always seems to release the information up to a day before the embargo allows. He does this to make it seem he has the jump on the other tech blogs. Sites like this have become my new real source for web 2.0 news.

Keep up the good work, this is fast becoming one of my favorites.

– Jimmy
Rod | May 11th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

Thanks so much for the kind words Jimmy! I’ve tried to make a habit of staying away from the politicized “drama” issues on TC (and elsewhere). Its more entertaining to look for the new & interesting sites and technologies anyway. Anyway, thanks again - I’ll try and keep it up!

-R