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TC40 Sounds Like a Joke

No offence to all of those who busted their asses to present at TC40 (or the demo pit, or whatever), or to those who worked hard behind the scenes to pull it all together. At the end of the day, though, TC40 sounds more and more like a TC insider-club joke, mainly because the winner - “Mint”:

1. Mint had ties to TechCrunch (old TC writer working there).;
2. Mint had two investors on the TC40 voting panel (nice edge).
3. Mint is a branded version of white label financial app Yodlee with some sketchy, poorly working functionality hastily tacked on top. (see Yodlee MoneyCenter).
4. Mint had already taken $5M in funding.

So - from a field of hungry startups, TC40 chose the one heavily connected to the panel, with a marginal value proposition, little innovation (their business model is freaking credit card referrals), and little need for $50k. I can see why TechCrunch has a small but vocal crowd of detractors - the choice of Mint as a winner is - from where I’m seated - a credibility hit against Calacanis, Arrington, and TC.

arrington, calacanis, mint, tc20, tc40, techcrunch, uncov yodlee

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RSS Feeds I no Longer Subscribe To

Every so often (twice so far), I’ll remove a feed from BlogLines (yes, I know GReader is better). So far, here are the two I’ve taken out:

Steve Rubel (MicroPersuasion): Was the first. Jumping all over every trend, he came across more and more as a paid advertisement (whether he was paid or not) - a sycophantic babbler. Not interesting. Then there was the whole “I throw my PC-Mag subscription in the trash” Twitter blow-up. Yay, you’re an egotistical jerk too. Uncov tears into Rubel in typical fashion. FEED DELETED.

Dave Winer (Scripting News): I know he originated RSS, and is friendly with lots of A-list bloggers. But, as I commented on the ‘wag, he’s a mean spirited, web-centric incarnation of Wozniak - riding high on past contributions that most everyone’s moved on from. And he really does seem to be a mean spirited jerk a lot of the time. His blog is unable to hold my attention, he’s acting up like a tool — FEED DELETED.

On the topic of Uncov: I wanted to delete them, because I think personal attacks aren’t required to make an adequate mockery of the average online business. But I couldn’t - they’re too good.

dave winer, feeds, micropersuasion, rss, scriptingnew, steve rubel uncov

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Zooomr on Uncov: Ouch.

I’ve always stayed out of Zooomr related discussions, as yes, I think it borrows to much from Flickr, and yes, I think its only success factor is some clunky “features” and the “heartwarming underdog” status of its underage, two person team — yadda yadda yadda all of which has been repeated ad nauseam elsewhere.

I’m also a regular reader of Uncov - the snarky, technically competent tech blog that offers biting reviews. Well, today Uncov took a swing at Zooomr, and I think I’m going to have to un-read, and unsubscirbe from the uncov.

There’s writing honest pithy reviews in an entertaining tone, and then there’s making a personal assualt on others. Uncov attracted me for the first, and has lost me for the second. Who cares if Kristopher is spelt with a “K,” Ted, or if Thomas Hawk is a bit of a goof (referring to the comment stream here). If you really loathe the site, tear apart its functionality and rip-offs and leave it at that. Personally, I like to read entertaining, interesting posts on technology - not character assasinations.

flickr, uncov, unsubscribe zooomr

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