Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder and wearer of acerbic T-shirts, has resurfaced with a new blog, promising ‘transparency’ and ‘truth.’

Arrington was banished as co-editor of TechCrunch last month, after new owner AOL decided he had a conflict of interest as a TechCrunch editor and owner of a new $20 million investment venture, the CrunchFund.

Arrington’s new blog, Uncrunched, launched on Friday with a single post titled, ‘Here I Am.’ Those three words were the entire post, though that didn’t stop users logging over 500 comments. Comfortingly, this was the first of those.

By Sunday, Arrington had found the Upload/Insert window in WordPress and wrote a far more substantial post titled, ‘What Exactly Am I Doing Here At Uncrunched?‘ Spoiler: he’s there so he can write what the hell he likes:

“One thing I knew for sure was that I’d never trick readers, or lie to them, or otherwise be shady. It’s not me. And even if it was me, it’s too easy to get caught. The easy path was the one where transparency was shining brightly. That was never enough to stop the journalism community’s antibodies from hitting TechCrunch hard over all the conflicts of interest that were inherently part of who I am. We fought through all that for years, and I kept fighting until my pen was removed from my hand, so to speak, by AOL a couple of weeks ago. Now I’ve got a new pen, though. And a blank slate. Infinite choices, I get to choose my own path. All that jazz.”

Arrington hasn’t held back on his dispute with AOL, which acquired TechCrunch for $25 million in September 2010. He’s been particularly vocal about his run-ins with Arianna Huffington, the president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group.

He appeared at TechCrunch Disrupt a fortnight ago sporting the “Unpaid Blogger” shirt you see above – a shot at the role he was limited to at TechCrunch after he was ousted – and was never short of a sarcastic comment over his dealings with AOL and Huffington.

Then, of course, there’s the name of his new internet den: ‘Uncrunched’ suggests Arrington isn’t ready to let bygones be bygones.

Michael Arrington Launches New Blog is a post from: The Inquisitr

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is well known for her strong way with words, and today at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, she decided to use her vocabulary to put TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington in his place.

After a series of questions and statements from Arrington, including the suggestion that Bartz was smoking bongs, Bartz let rip, first all but saying that Arrington had a small penis until finally telling him to f*&k off.

The transcript highlights:

Bartz: “you are involved in a very tiny company.”
“It probably takes a long time to even convince yourself what the hell to do.”
“So f*&k off!”

Video (via 1938 Media) as follows:

Video: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz Tells TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington To F*&k Off is a post from: The Inquisitr

The sordid tale of cash for comment that has embroiled up and coming teen blogger Daniel Brusilovsky and TechCrunch has the tech blogosphere engrossed this week, but it’s time someone threw Daniel a bone.

If you’ve missed the story so far, check out TechCrunch sacks 17-year-old intern for trading toys for coverage and TechCrunch and its lost Teachable Moment for more; the short story is that Daniel has been sacked from TechCrunch for allegedly asking for a laptop in return to write a post about a startup.

It always staggered me that Daniel (I’m going to use his first name in this post because his last name is too hard to get right each time, besides pronouncing it) ended up writing for TechCrunch to begin with. He appears to be a smart kid, and without doubt a pretty solid self promoter. But the key here is that his fame, and rise to the halls of TechCrunch came about because of his ability to self promote, vs any actual real world experience in writing, be it as a blogger, journalist or combination there in.

But lets put that experience in context: he’s 16-17 (a kid,) and he came to online fame via a post on TechCrunch which swallowed Daniel’s spin that a basic WordPress MU install with a handful of users was an amazing teenage startup that would change the world.

People in glass houses

If we accept the laptop for content claim as real (and as Mark Hopkins points out, we haven’t heard Daniel’s side yet) Daniel is guilty of greed. That greed though isn’t something that is unique to Daniel, and anyone who suggests that it is unique has never worked in the tech blogosphere before (journalism isn’t any better I’d note.)

The reality is, and always has been that the content wheels of Silicon Valley have always been greased by freebie and favor. That could be something as simple as free drinks or a free meal, and can go as far as freebies from basic promotional material through to free to-keep products. Lets also not forget one of my favorites (I only managed one free trip to the US in my time): free travel. It can also mean access: Valley startups have always been picky on access, giving it to those who are more favorable to them.

There may be nothing wrong with most of that, but it begs the question: at which point is the editorial compromised by the facilitation of freebie or favor?

Daniel’s mistake was that as an inexperienced kid, he didn’t understand the subtleties of the system. A couple of years older and he’d know you don’t ask for something upfront, and asking for a Macbook Air is full blown greedy; but likewise he was thrown into that system and saw that everyone else was getting something, and he wanted his slice as well.

Victim

What Daniel did (if true) was wrong, but lets not confuse one point: he is not the aggressor here, he is the victim. He is a victim of a system that is no place for kids, let alone a place for those with a faint heart and any serious moral basis. I’ve slept so much better at night since I walked away from it, and I know others who feel exactly the same. There are those inside the system who have families to feed, and I don’t blame them either, but lets not lose site of the bigger picture.

If anything good comes of this, it should be a serious look at ethics within journalism and by extension blogging. What happens in blogging now is really just an extension of what has gone on in journalism for the last 100 years; that doesn’t excuse it, but to note that the problem is one ingrained in reporting of all sorts.

I don’t know Daniel, and I’ve never particularly liked what he had been doing, but I’m willing to throw the kid a bone on simple fairness, and that I actually feel sorry for him. Your career (as some have suggested) should never be over at 16, and we all make mistakes.

I hope those mentoring Daniel (and I know there have been some solid people previously helping him) give him the support he needs at this difficult time, and that having learned a lesson he may return a better person to the tech space.

It’s Time Someone Threw Daniel Brusilovsky A Bone is a post from: The Inquisitr

Michael Arrington is “shaken” and has dismissed 17-year-old tech wunderkind Daniel Brusilovsky after information emerged that the kid was demanding shiny new tech toys in exchange for TechCrunch coverage.

In a post publicly flogging the “unnamed” minor (easily discerned due to his notability and some identifying information) Arrington says all of Brusilovsky’s contributions have been deleted and that he hopes the intern will develop into a person who can “be more welcome in this community.” Ouch. After rescinding Daniel’s seat at the cool kids table, Arrington goes on to link to the boy’s blog, where Brusilovsky apologizes for the kickback-demands and says the word “amazing” about 35 times. To imagine how this boy must be feeling, take any of your high school gym class mortifications and multiply it by about a million. Then post it on the internet.

Of course, I’d imagine that no matter how clever a high school kid sounds or how impressively tech savvy he is, it might be a good idea to implement some oversight before turning out his work to the tech blogosphere unchecked. It’s likely he had a pretty good idea of at least the basic integrity related issues that surround receiving kickbacks for placements, but when I was seventeen I wasn’t allowed to work the fryolater alone at Roy Rogers, much less disseminate information to a large pool of readers that could make or break a fledgling company.

Generally, when kids screw things up on a large scale, they get in some trouble, but ultimately the adults in charge of them have to answer too for not keeping a close enough eye on the little bastards. Seventeen is still seventeen, and if the internet had been anything more than AOL over a carrier pigeon dial-up connection when I was that age, I imagine I would have gotten up to scads more idiocy. What really sucks is that what probably didn’t feel like too bad of a decision at the time will probably follow this kid for far longer than he could have imagined.

[Image]

TechCrunch sacks 17-year-old intern for trading toys for coverage is a post from: The Inquisitr

As we’ve covered over the past few weeks, the CrunchPad/ JooJoo project has taken a turn for the bizarre as developer Fusion Garage dropped TechCrunch from the rollout.

The story has parts of the tech blogosphere captivated, complete with allegations and counter-allegations, pre-sales and litigation. Like many I’ve been following the story, and had the opportunity to talk to Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan last week. Even after that chat, there’s still a pile about the story that doesn’t make sense (although most of the issues fall on the TechCrunch side.) Here’s the things that don’t add up.

Timing: Michael Arrington claimed November 30 that the CrunchPad was ready to launch November 20. And yet December 7 the JooJoo was demonstrated complete with JooJoo branding.

Exhibit 1

Now it’s hard to say with 100% certainty that the JooJoo branding isn’t a sticker, but it sure doesn’t look like one. It looks like it’s part of the unit, and none of the hands on reviews (I’ve read) have noted that there is a sticker there (something that I’m sure would have been noticed.)

A switch in branding on a production run isn’t a matter of flicking a switch, it takes a significant lead time. Either the CrunchPad was never ready to debut November 20 and/or Fusion Garage had already made a switch before that date to create a JooJoo branded product.

Manufacture: Michael Arrington now claims that the bulk of the IP rests with Pegatron (interestingly contradicting his earlier statements including “We jointly own the CrunchPad product intellectual property”), further that Pegatron was the manufacturer, but Fusion Garage is now using a different company to produce the JooJoo.

Again, you can’t simply hit a switch and produce a product like this overnight. If Fusion Garage is using a different manufacturer, the lead time must pre-date November 20.

Finances: Michael Arrington claims “Fusion Garage is, and always has been, a company on the edge of going out of business” and that “The company was constantly raising debt from unsavory investors, borderline loansharks, to make payroll.”

If that’s the case, why was Arrington in business with them to begin with? He’s not a dumb bloke, surely if this was true, he wouldn’t have risked a project as important to him as the CrunchPad with them?

Timeline: Michael Arrington claims “We chose to work with Fusion Garage on Prototype C and the launch prototype after we finished Prototype B internally.”

Michael seems obsessed with the fact that Fusion Garage deleted their blog (which obviously is a little odd,) but here’s the thing he leaves out: that blog originally showed a post where Fusion Garage talks about working with TechCrunch on Prototype B.

Jurisdiction: Arrington writes “Thursday afternoon we filed a lawsuit against Fusion Garage in the Northern District of California Federal court” and yet Fusion Garage is a Singapore company.

The court documents claim that the California court does have jurisdiction based on a couple of factors; I’m not a lawyer so I won’t claim to understand the validity of those arguments. But likewise, Fusion Garage is a company wholly owned and operated in Singapore, not the United States. Even if a case were proven in the United States, its enforcement in Singapore would be at the very least difficult, if not impossible. United States law does not hold a status that is superior in other jurisdictions: end of story. Arrington knows this, so why start the proceedings in California and not Singapore unless the court case is more about show vs substance?

Lawyers: Arrington claims that “the company [Fusion Garage] has not yet hired an attorney to respond to our lawsuit.”

And yet, when I spoke to the CEO, he claimed that TechCrunch doesn’t have a case even under US law. That’s either a good bluff, or they have legal advice; I’d suggest the latter.

Open Source: Arrington said “Let’s design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them. If everything works well, we’d then open source the design and software and let anyone build one that wants to.”

And yet Rathakrishnan told me last week that the open source commitment was one Arrington made, and they had never agreed to open source it, nor was that point raised with them.

If that was a real commitment from TechCrunch, why not either try and force the JooJoo to be open source, or in the event that Arrington owns an equal share of the IP, why not release all the details for others to use? If you really wanted to slow down the JooJoo, wouldn’t allowing others to make it be a reasonable step? Well, that’s presuming that the open source offer was sincere in the first place; others have suggested that the offer wasn’t.

Friends? Arrington claims that Rathakrishnan was his friend, and then that he is a “bad guy.”

ITWorld has a good summary on this point, and it goes back to the earlier point on if Fusion Garage was so bad, why was TechCrunch is business with them?

Funding: Arrington claims “We have had financing from top tier investors lined up for the CrunchPad…. That financing was on hold until we launched the device.”

Hang on, how can you “have had” financing but didn’t actually have the financing yet. Everyone knows that financing is only ever as good as when you get it.

Control The Press: Arrington claims that “We believe it is irresponsible for press to link to the pre-sale site without disclosing this to readers” Arrington’s claims of financial difficulty at Fusion Garage.

I think ITWorld says it well: “This attempt to directly sway the press away from Fusion Garage really spikes my suspicion meter. After all, Arrington is the press. If I started writing screeds advising him on what he should or should not say about a product, what would he think? I suggest he’d think I was just doing everything I could to further my agenda.”

Conclusion

Michael Arrington and I might not be friends these days, but I worked for the guy for 12 months, and despite our differences today I’ve always maintained that he is one of the smartest guys I’ve ever worked with.

Which is why none of this makes any sense at all.

If the paperwork was in order Fusion Garage wouldn’t have launched the JooJoo. Arrington may have been conned, or Arrington was sloppy on the legal side, but neither are things I’d see Arrington caught by. Add to this the contradictions and other odd points raised in this post, and the plot gets even weirder again.

They say the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, and in this case I’d nearly place a bet on that being the case.

Update: Two things missed: thejoojoo.com (the official site) was registered November 9. Second, the owner of Crunchpad.com claimed on Reddit when the story broke that he had never been approached by Arrington to buy the name at that time.

The registration of the JooJoo name shows that there was a lead time until Arrington was told about the decision of Fusion Garage to go it alone, but not by a long time.

The failure to attempt to buy Crunchpad.com though is odd: you don’t just not attempt to own the .com name of the product you’re apparently about to launch.

Things That Don’t Make Sense About The CrunchPad/ JooJoo Story is a post from: The Inquisitr

Michael Arrington promised to file a lawsuit against JooJoo maker Fusion Garage after their CrunchPad partnership had fallen apart, while Fusion Garage CEO Chander Rathakrishnan promised that no intellectual property was taken from the TechCrunch founder. Now as promised Arrington is taking Fusion Garage to court.

Arrington on Wednesday filed suit against the manufacturer in a Northern District California Court. His complaint says that the CrunchPad (JooJoo) developer was involved in fraud, misappropriation of business ideas and basically “stealing” the project from TechCrunch.

According to Arrington, Ratharkrishanan’s current claims that Arrington owns no IP is incorrect and the TechCrunch founder states that blueprints and much of the devices other IP were originated by Pegatron, the original planned manufacturer for the device.

In true Arrington fashion TechCrunch has launched character attacks against Rathakrishnan, stating that he’s plagiarized content and erased their blog to hide contradictory statements. They also claim that the company is funded by “unsavory” creditors. He has also tried to persuade media companies from linking to the JooJoo pre-order page. In case you missed that he doesn’t want you to CLICK HERE. He says they don’t have the money to build the devices, however in our last interview with Chander he talked about new funding, bringing the total raised to $3 million.

Here’s what we don’t understand, why didn’t a “businessman” like Arrington have contracts in place? Also, he blames Singapore press for not mentioning Rathakrishnan’s previous company failure, however Chander in a web conference last week talked about the failure of that company in a very matter of fact way that any blog who chose to could have reported on.

Not surprisingly the suit asks for a preliminary injunction of the JooJoo from being sold until the case comes to an end. It should be interesting to see all of the contracts, proof of verbal obligations and other “proof” that Arrington can provide.

Here’s my question to Arrington, why did you get into business in the first place with a businessman you appear to have known nothing about, while continuing the relationship when as you put it money was raised by using “unsavory creditors.” You also claim that much of the IP, if in fact true, was taken from another manufacturer? If you knew that fact you had an obligation to address it during the build process. It seems to me that more than one side may have been guilty of unsavory business.

TechCrunch Files Lawsuit Against Fusion Garage Intellectual Property Rights is a post from: The Inquisitr

Following this morning’s conference call and live video debut of Fusion Garage’s JooJoo (the tablet previously known as the CrunchPad) I had the opportunity to chat with CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan this afternoon about the product and ask him some questions, including a number of questions submitted by readers.

The answers may be slightly edited for brevity (and the fact I only managed to record half the chat, so some answers are going on notes.) I should note though that some answers were as brief as they appear in the transcript.

Q: What’s the deal with the name? How did you come up with it and what does it mean?

A: JooJoo is a Mexican term for magical, and we believe that it describes the many things the product does.

Q: Do you intend to sell it through retail outlets, and as an extension of that, are you currently negotiating retail distribution deals?

A: Yes, and we are discussing retail distribution through a variety of outlets.

Q: Any time frame? Are we likely to see JooJoo’s in stores in the short term, or longer?

A: Definitely the short term, and in the first half of next year.

Q: Is Australia on the list?

A: We’ll be targeting the United States market first, but Australia in one of several countries we would hope to be selling the Joojoo in next year.

Q: How do the economies of scale work in the short term when you’re only selling online? Do you have any sales projections at this stage, or would you rather not say?

A: At this stage we’re not saying.

Q: Some of the criticism online since the launch this morning has been on the price. Michael Arrington has been talking $200 and $300. Have you market tested demand at $500?

A: I think there is going to be demand at the price we have set. When people play with the device and what it brings to the table they’ll appreciate the value for the price with performance. There’s no comparable product; it’s a new product in itself. Compared it to a Kindle DX, a 9.7″ ebook, or the iPhone which is 3.5″ and $299 with contract, $1200 without out; compare it to our product at $499, we’re not even charging a premium for it.

Q: how do you see the JooJoo competing with an Apple tablet if one is launched next year?

A: If and when it does happen, Apple will go with a cut down Mac, or an iPhone style widget interface. If widgets, consumers will have a choice between an app centric approach from Apple, or the open web centric approach on the JooJoo. Apple has the app store, but the internet has the largest app store of all and that’s what we’re offering. We’re taking the high ground and we’ll be taking a completely different approach to Apple, and we believe that the audience will respond to that.

Q: On the mention of “open,” Michael Arrington talked about the CrunchPad being open source. Obviously the OS on the JooJoo is built on top of Linux, do you have any plans to open source the OS?

A: Open source is not part of the strategy right now, but never say never. The open source technologies will continue to contribute back to the community, but we’ve merged the Webkit layer into the Linux Kernel. Michael Arrington’s open source stories were his, and we didn’t have a part to play in it.

Q: Moving on to the legal action threatened by TechCrunch; Fusion Garage is in Singapore, the manufacturer in Taiwan. Do you see Arrington’s threats of legal action in the US as possibly having any affect on your operations, presuming that the jurisdictional issues don’t get in the way?

A: I don’t think so, but even in the American legal system we own all the IP, so there is no claim.

Q: You’re 100% certain that all the IP belongs to you, and that Arrington has no claim to it?

A: Arrington’s claims are clearly ludicrous. We’ve done all the software and hardware design, and legally own all the IP.

Q: a funny question from @Rizzn on Twitter: what will the Joojoo do better without the involvement of Michael Arrington?

A: What does it do better than what Arrington promises? It delivers! To make the point again, it definitely delivers. Second, Arrington had a vision where you had a wall, and we’ve delivered on that. What we’ve done is actually delivered on that.

Q: in the video this morning, the UI was green? Camera?

A: definitely camera, it’s more gray but you’d have to see it to explain it. We will be releasing screen shots shortly.

There was then some Q + A on the hardware. Nothing much new vs other coverage.

Q: Following the story in the Singapore press, there have been natural comparisons to Creative. Do you see Fusion Garage as potentially Singapore’s next big success story.

A: We hope so and this is something we’d like to achieve.

There you have folks, and thanks to all those who submitted questions via Twitter. Some were merged so it’s hard to credit each individually, but you know who you are.

Q&A With Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan On The JooJoo is a post from: The Inquisitr

Despite winning a Popular Mechanics award for being one of the “most brilliant” products of 2009 sight-unseen, the mythical CrunchPad TechCrunch tablet has dissolved into a cloud of ill-will and bitchy sniping, much to the surprise of absolutely no one.

Many techy types were skeptical about the hype surrounding the never-existing project- earlier this month, Wired questioned whether the CrunchPad was “still alive.” Vocal through the summer before abruptly shutting up about the CrunchPad, Michael Arrington declined comment on the piece, but up until today did not indicate the the ambitious tablet was in any jeopardy- despite an ever increasing hypothetical price tag, lack of actual product, and looming Apple tablet on the horizon (possibly killing any interest in the CrunchPad to begin with.)

Details behind the implosion aren’t immediately clear- it’s claimed that FusionGarage conveniently booted Arrington/TechCrunch from the project with no warning:

Bizarrely, we were being notified that we were no longer involved with the project. Our project. [partner and Fusion Garage CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan] said that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without our involvement.

Err, what? This is the equivalent of Foxconn, who build the iPhone, notifiying Apple a couple of days before launch that they’d be moving ahead and selling the iPhone directly without any involvement from Apple.

But reading the recounting of the events leading up to the death of the project feels incomplete- was it a few days before launch? Are there millions of orphaned CrunchPads sitting in warehouses waiting to be distributed? Or is this just a case of maybe bloggers should stick to blogging and let manufacturers manufacture? Fusion Garage has yet to weigh in on Arrington’s accusations, and a technology consultant spoke to MSNBC about the likelihood that the CrunchPad ever would have seen the light of day:

“The device was actually very interesting, though it was trending to be much too expensive for anyone but an Apple-class vender to sell. Given they set expectations for initial price so low and then were unable to build a device that would meet those expectations I doubt the device would have been very successful.”

DOA: Vaporware CrunchPad goes up in smoke is a post from: The Inquisitr

My old boss Michael Arrington has made headlines over the weekend when a video of him going mental at OfferPal CEO Anu Shukla at Friday’s Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco emerged online.

Michael’s gripe seems to be that users of free Facebook applications are duped when they sign up for services in return for not having to pay cash for Facebook game goodies. What should have been a reasonable argument about some deceptive advertisers in the industry naturally broke down when Michael basically accused Zygna, OfferPal, and seemingly Netflix of defrauding users…oh, and for good measure he accused Facebook of being complicit.

Anu Shukla responded in kind, going hard against Michael’s accusations. According to Michael, “Shukla went on a tirade, calling my points “shit, doubleshit, and bullshit” (yes, really), but never really addressed the points,” which is a little like the pot calling the kettle black: what the hell did he expect after he basically got up and said that what her company did made them scammers? I would have thought Michael would have learned by now that not everyone rolls over and takes it when you criticize them in public or private, and I’m case in point.

(continues after video)

Taking away the venom of both, there’s truth from both sides. Michael is right in that some offers are at best dubious, at worst a full blown scam. But likewise to suggest that the only thing these businesses trade on, or to suggest that all incentive offers are a scam ignores that good legitimate lead based advertising provides, not only to application developers, but to those who rely on advertising across the board. Not all lead based advertising is evil just because some advertisers are.

The unknown from me, and I’d note Shukla touches on it, is how many of these dubious ads are delivered automatically as part of a network, vs a complicit action on behalf of OfferPal and others to show them. If you want an excellent example of automation, check out Quadzilla’s post on the issue, where he notes that against the same post on TechCrunch appeared a “make $1000 a day” ad…likely one of those get rich on Google scams that have been going around this year.

The solution

In recognizing that at least some of the ads shown by these companies could be defined as “scam” like (as opposed to all or even a simple majority), the better solution isn’t attacking someone at a conference, but lobbying for legislative change or legal intervention that targets the advertiser to begin with.

What surprised me with my Australian hat on is that the ad examples on TechCrunch could be legal to start with, because they wouldn’t be in Australia (and if they’re showing these ads to Australian’s, they’re in deep trouble.) The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has taken action against similar ads on TV and elsewhere (one recent example) where the disclosure was small to non-existent…on the basis of “false and misleading and deceptive conduct.”

If consumers in the United States are viewing ads of a similar sort, shouldn’t this be a case for the FTC or similar? and if the law doesn’t back that, shouldn’t it be amended to provide that sort of consumer protection?

If Michael is truly passionate on the subject (and watching the video I believe that he is) he’d be better off calling on the FTC to act and not just simply attacking female CEO’s for Friday sport.

On Incentive Offers in Facebook, the truth lies somewhere in the middle is a post from: The Inquisitr

Michael Arrington

Mark Zuckerberg

Marissa Mayer

Stephen Conroy

Ev Williams and Biz Stone

The Kanye meme: the Inquisitr tech edition is a post from: The Inquisitr

I promised myself I’d stop taking shots at Techcrunch, it’s not healthy and I’ve moved on, but as I choked on my breakfast this morning I’ve decided to relent, because the man who put Ashton Kutcher on stage at what was suppose to be a serious tech conference is now asking that Silicon Valley doesn’t become like Hollywood.

You can’t make this stuff up: my old boss Michael Arrington is not only rallying against Hollywood (as he pisses his pants in excitement over Penn and Teller doing TechCrunch 50 next week), but he’s actually written that he doesn’t want people to pitch him. Did I say already that I’m not making this up?

But like a poorly written business plan, or should I say declaring TechCrunch 50 sold out when your third party ticket outlet was still selling tickets based on your own availability data, Arrington plays the I’m god card, saying ” As Silicon Valley gets bigger, with more strangers, it actually becomes harder to reach the power structure that can make your startup go from a business plan to reality.” Does that make Arrington the Catholic Church?

You see, you should only ever pitch TechCrunch if you have a startup at exactly 1.457944569879458 into its development cycle. Pitching outside of that stage of your development means you want to paint Michael’s house… or something.

People regularly tell me that they miss the old TechCrunch, and despite what Arrington may think I still defend the site to some degree: the market has changed, and TechCrunch has changed with it. But when Michael Arrington writes a post that basically tells people who want to pitch him to fuck off, and that the Valley is turning into Hollywood despite he himself suckling the celebrity teet at the second its dangled in front of him, the plot is lost and TechCrunch has passed from great site to a self imposed cess pool powered on nothing more than Michael’s ego.

Farewell TechCrunch, we loved you so.

The man who put Ashton Kutcher on stage claims the Valley shouldn’t be like Hollywood is a post from: The Inquisitr

Former rap star turned startup founder MC Hammer is in serious financial trouble, and may be facing bankruptcy, casting some doubt on user generated dance site DanceJam.

According to reports, MC Hammer owes $671,182 to the IRS and the State of California in three separate tax debts, each of which has resulted in liens being placed on property owned by Hammer and his wife.

MC Hammer has declared bankruptcy previously (in 1996), and it’s not clear from reports whether the new debts may force him to declare bankruptcy a second time. What the do show though is that MC Hammer can’t pay his bills, and that could be representative of even deeper financial issues at play.

The news won’t help struggling startup DanceJam, that launched with much fanfare at the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco in September 2007. Hammer is listed as the co-founder of the site, and also holds the position of CSO; primarily his role for the site has been as its public face, a celebrity spokesman of sorts that promotes DanceJam in the media and at events. Having your star co-founder face bankruptcy and possible court time over unpaid tax isn’t a good look for any startup.

DanceJam has struggled to build any significant traffic, managing only 168,000 unique visitors in July according to Compete, and is ranked at 38,726 on Alexa. An angel round of $1 million was backed by Ron Conway, Michael Arrington and others, and Softbank Capital and Rustic Canyon Partners invested over two rounds of $3.5million and $3.92 million each. $8.42 million in total for stats that are lackluster isn’t a positive sign.

MC Hammer in serious financial trouble, will DanceJam be far behind? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Those against the list argue that it’s unfair, and unjustly gives priority to some users rather than others. Even Twitter investor Fred Wilson thinks it should be done better.

Here’s the problem: the presumption is made on the false belief that what you think matters to Twitter. It doesn’t.

Twitter joins a long list of companies that virtually c*^k suck the A-list and others they think will get them ahead than actually really care about what 99.99% of the rest of their users think. FriendFeed has been recommending A-listers since it launched, many who never use the service. Despite regular protests by users, they’ve never changed it. Why? because they don’t give a shit about you either.

Pick your service. RSS Readers and web desktops add TechCrunch as a standard feed to curry favor with Michael Arrington, who recently found God in Hawaii. They don’t recommend your site because you don’t matter to them, and they don’t care about you either.

Is it fair? they don’t care!

I’m sympathetic to the complaints to a point, but complaining does nothing with most of the these companies because they know in the most that you’re not going to stop using them, so you don’t count…you don’t matter.

Want to rage against the machine and change the system? good luck, most people are apathetic and couldn’t care less. The only way to change things if you feel strongly enough is to start your own startup and promise to do it better.

Lets face it: you don’t matter is a post from: The Inquisitr

TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington has publicly named Valleywag, and AllThingD as leading the hate campaign that led to him being spat on in Germany, and stalked.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (which owns AllThingsD) Arrington said that while no particular site urged him specific harm, “a handful of tech blogs… have published matter that damaged my site’s reputation, including AllThingsD.com” and Valleywag.

AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, someone we hold in high regard here, denied any connection. “Our site is trying to raise ethical and reporting standards in the tech blogosphere but is in no way responsible for people stalking Michael Arrington. To say so is truly unfortunate on his part,” she said. “I am appalled he is being stalked, which is scary and disturbing, and am sorry for the strife it has clearly caused him and his family.”

I not long ago wrote a post where I’d hoped that Michael looked inward in regard to his current issues; that he continues to blame others is part and parcel of the problem.

Blog War! Arrington blames AllThingsD, Valleywag for hate campaign is a post from: The Inquisitr

Much of the blogosphere, and even the mainstream press (Asher Moses at The Age has one of the best posts up) is buzzing about a post from TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington where Arrington claims that he’s had enough after being stalked and spat on.

Let me say upfront that the stalking and spitting is most definitely a step to far, that no blogger should have to put up with that, and in that regard he has my sympathies.

But it’s the fine print where the story lets me down. In Michael’s world, people are out to get him, because TechCrunch didn’t write about their startup (on the spitting incident “some unhappy European entrepreneur we didn’t write about”) or because they are jealous and/ or competitors (“my peers will realize that competitive pressures do not give them carte blanche to accuse us and others of literally anything that pops into their head”).

Quite simply, it’s Michael’s attitude to others that is at the very heart of the problem.

My own run in with Arrington is a case in point. I left TechCrunch on a reasonable note, Michael wrote a nice post (since deleted I might add) and I was even doing a couple of guest posts a week for the first month. Then I signed a deal with a small startup that in a very remote way competed with Crunchbase. I honestly believed at the time that it wouldn’t be an issue, the one on one comparison was so minor, and even the day before I got my fuck off email I’d been sending story tips through to Michael, and even working with one of their new writers helping him get established.

The email from Michael claimed that I was out to get them. In Michael’s world, you’re 100% agree with him, or you’re 100% against him. Michael made some other allegations that I’d been negative about TechCrunch to that point; I’d written one, maybe two posts where I disagreed with stuff on TechCrunch, but as anyone around me will testify, to that day I’d always spoken publicly and privately positively about my time working for Michael.

This is but one example, but it’s an example of how Michael operates. I considered him well to that point, and this is the way he treats someone who worked his arse off for him for 12 months, 7 days a week, with one very short break (I left because the pay wasn’t worth the cost on my health). God help the people who really are anti-Arrington, and the lashing they’ve received. Michael pushes people away who can and would support him, and makes enemies of those who want to support him, but may not always agree with him 100% of the time.

But I digress, because there are other clues here as to the root cause of the problem. The spitting incident for example: Michael immediately presumes that it was a startup person who didn’t get a review, but the far more likely reason is Michael’s anti-European startup comments at LeWeb. That those around him didn’t offer assistance shows what many who follow the European blogosphere and startup community were reading: Arrington is hated on the continent because of what he said about them, absolutely nothing to do with a startup reviews or competition.

There’s also this presumption from Michael that people in the United States hate him for similar reasons: not getting a review, or being in competition. That this may hold true for some is a given, but a few don’t make a majority. People aren’t jealous of Michael, in fact why would they be: long hours, lots of stress, and he gets stalked and spat on. If anything, those who still hold any good will towards him (and part of me does, despite our stoush) are actually concerned more than anything: his lashing out has created an atmosphere were he has become hated, as we see now to an extreme point. But lets be clear on the why: it’s not because of TechCrunch the blog, and his competitive posts, or because competitors want to bring him down (which I’d note, really, TechCrunch has few real competitors anyway); the problem stems from the way he deals with others.

I mean this quite sincerely, but I hope that he uses his time off (which I’d note is long overdue anyway), to realize that the world isn’t black and white, and that not everyone is out to get him. I’ve seen the good, generous, kind, engaging and interesting sides of Michael, and I realize the pressure he is under, but change has come to America, and change needs to come to the empire of Arrington. There’s a good guy in there still, I just hope that side wins out. As a commenter on Valleywag pointed out: Om Malik doesn’t attract this negative attention. I hope the good Michael returns, and we’d be all the better off to see it once again. I know I miss that side of him, as do many of those who once knew him, but were pushed away, do.

Michael Arrington: the world isn’t black and white is a post from: The Inquisitr

As we end 2008, the year ahead offers the biggest challenge ever in the history of blogging.

Although blogging dates back to the beginning of the first dot com boom, it truly came of age as the second bubble grew. From the rise of the political bloggers in 2004, blogging became mainstream, and with that came money and commercialism.

Blogging is more than its commercial endeavors, and as a non-commercial platform for networking, global communication and sharing blogging has many great days ahead of it, and may actually boom in 2009 after a dip in popularity over 2007 and 2008 as social networks became a first choice of communications and networking outlet for many.

But the commercial side of blogging is facing a difficult year. The same issues that face the broader Tech and Web 2.0 spheres face blogging: a dearth of VC, declining ad revenues, and even tougher competition as many try to compensate for lower ad revenues by driving even more traffic.

The dangers for commercial blog owners come on a number of fronts, but there’s one trend we’ve already seen begin.

The rise of the Uber Blog

Some may moan at the use of the word uber, so feel free to substitute it with big or large, because the meaning remains the same. An Uber Blog is a blog that combines different content streams into one large blog, with one primary top level url. The Huffington Post is an example I’ve used before. The blending of content can be in related fields, or non related fields; for example, you might blend specialties in tech into the one tech blog.

It has already begun

In a post asking whether the blog network model is dying, I made similar observations on a number of companies, some I’ll repeat here

ReadWriteWeb

ReadWriteWeb has gone from a traditional blog network in to the uber blog model. Owner Richard McManus gave away or sold the two blogs in the network, at the same time he was launching new blogs under the ReadWriteWeb brand. The reason given by Richard: a focus on the core brand.

Silicon Alley Insider

Henry Blodget merged the two blogs outside of Silicon Alley Insider into sub-urls on alleyinsider.com. While each blog maintains their own name and heading, they are now all parts of alleyinsider itself as opposed to standalone blogs.

Gawker Media

In between selling blogs, Nick Denton merged Valleywag into Gawker on a sub-url. Valleywag keeps its header and name, but is now a column of Gawker.

b5media

b5media hasn’t yet started blending blogs into larger blogs, but has instead undertaken a variation of the theme: branded portals. Content from b5media’s business and celebrity channels fall under the banner of a larger site, which also acts as a gateway to the content.

Why one large blog?

The reasoning behind the move is remarkably simple: it’s easy to sell ads on one blog vs many blogs, for a couple of reasons. The biggest is simply traffic: having one big blog means increased traffic to the core blog making the sales pitch more appealing. Second, advertisers will often want to target the one blog and not buy the subsidiary blogs; maybe not always, but none the less common in my experience. If you have one big blog with various streams you’ve got better odds of getting high value advertising against all the content.

Expanding outside the niche

Having sub blogs within a large blog, or amalgamating smaller blogs gives commercial blog operators the ability to broaden their content range outside of a specific niche, often with the advantage of not necessarily polluting the core product. The content for example on Silicon Alley Insider and ReadWriteWeb’s sub-blogs is complimentary, and allows both sites to increase content outside the core sites focus, driving growth and new visitors to the product as whole.

Three companies that haven’t blended blogs but could or should

TechCrunch

Michael Arrington followed the typical blog network route with the TechCrunch blogs, launching new sites on new urls. The problem with the network is that it has never produced a hit that has come close to TechCrunch itself. Excluding the country specific sites that site on the techcrunch.com url (except Japan), sites like CrunchGear haven’t delivered (for reference, with a yearly budget that wouldn’t cover one months wages at CrunchGear, we have more traffic according to Quantcast). CrunchGear though isn’t a bad site, it just lacks for eyeballs because it’s not part of TechCrunch itself. Perfect candidate for a sub-blog, like crunchgear.techcrunch.com. The same goes for Mobile and Enterprise. Despite his dislike of me, Arrington is a smart bloke, and I’d bet we see at least one of these sites blended this year, if not all of them.

GigaOm

Om Malik has been buying blogs in a tight market, expanding his network at a time most others aren’t. The unique thing about the network is that gigaom.com doesn’t dominate it, accounting for 31.7% of traffic vs second place TheAppleBlog with 26.9%. However, a number of small blogs would appear to be struggling alone, and would make prime candidates for folding into the leading site.

AOL Weblogs Inc

AOL has continued to go wide, aggressively expanding the network they acquired from Jason Calacanis 4 year ago. AOL does have a couple of obvious strengths: the ability to sell ads across the network, and the leverage of AOL.com to pump new sites. They have already though started to group sites around key brands such as Engadget, and I’d suggest in a tightening market that grouping, being it masthead or subdomains/ sub blogs could come into play in 2009.

Conclusion

In 2009 big will be better. Not big networks of many sites, but big blogs that break out of the narrow niche focus that has been typical of commercial blogging until now, and instead go wide in content but focused on one brand and one url.

The rise of the uber blog will also mark the beginning of the time new media starts to surpass old media. The thing holding back new media to date has been its obsession with niche plays that didn’t naturally lead to scale that sets them up well to compete with old media titans that went wide online as they did offline in print. The new media uber blogs of 2009 and beyond will offer real substitution of old media like we haven’t really seen before, and with lean structures that are best placed to last the recession, could ultimately emerge on top.

2009 Will Be The Year of the Uber Blog is a post from: The Inquisitr

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington writes today that he’s tired of the running joke that is the PR embargo system and that they won’t be respecting embargoes in the future except from a handful of trusted PR firms.

He claims that TechCrunch never breaks embargoes, which is completely untrue I might add (they broke the Mahalo story embargo this week by about 20 minutes), but then goes moral on the broken system and why they’re no longer going to play unless they get posts exclusively.

I can’t help at first glance but agree with the points he makes: the system is broken, most PR reps do nothing to enforce embargoes and we’ve actually had a policy in place here for some time that we ask PR reps who regularly don’t enforce embargoes on stories we spend time on to remove us from their list (AOL is one company we no longer cover for example).

But that’s not the real intention of the post. Strip away the moral indignation and you get a very clever play to get TechCrunch more content.

You see if most of TechCrunch’s main competitors wrote that they would ignore embargoes in the future, they’d find their inboxes slowly dry up as PR reps exclude them from pre-briefs and embargoed distributions. But TechCrunch is different. PR firms compete for headlines on TechCrunch, and are regularly told by their clients that they must get a post on TechCrunch, and I know this from having spoken to PR reps during my time writing for TechCrunch, and even more recently.

The decision to ignore embargoes by TechCrunch may mean they miss out on a few stories, but the real result will be that TechCrunch will be offered more exclusives, and TechCrunch’s competitors will miss out on a fair shot of running the story at the same time.

Moral indignation as a ploy to get more exclusive stories and drive more traffic. Touche Michael, Touche. Brilliant play. Evil Genius.

Michael Arrington: Evil Genius is a post from: The Inquisitr

The default In Quotes choices, not surprisingly, are John McCain and Barack Obama. You can switch out with anyone from George Bush to Bill or Hillary Clinton, even Condoleeza Rice and Nancy Pelosi. And it’s not just limited to the U.S., either — a top-of-screen option lets you toggle over to an edition featuring British, Canadian, or Indian leaders.

In Quotes has a handful of obvious issues that you can click on — abortion, economy, health care — but it also lets you specify your own terms. You can then scroll through the list of quotes or hit the “spin” button to get a random one selected.

The site is a fun way to sift through political coverage specific to topics and candidates of your choosing. It doesn’t, of course, provide you a full spectrum of any person’s views, since you’re seeing only selected snippets from individual stories. A service such as The Boston Channel’s candidate comparison tool does a more all-encompassing job of laying out the candidates’ overall stances issue-by-issue (at least for the U.S. presidential campaign). As long as you use In Quotes with the understanding of what it can and cannot do, though, it’s an interesting tool that adds another layer to the political news experience.

Now, for our idea. The foundation is there. Next, we’d like to see the In Quotes Blogger Edition. Take the same concept, but switch out the players and the topics.

Just imagine the fun side-by-side comparisons could you drum up:

Here’s hoping Google decides to open source the code.

Google In Quotes and Our Million Dollar Idea is a post from: The Inquisitr

For a few

Michael Arrington’s conflicts of interest have been long discussed, and the latest round of navel gazing comes from news that Om Malik (of GigaOm) has taken a senior position at a VC firm while still running one of the biggest sites covering the space. In both cases, Drama 2.0 is right, disclosure doesn’t cut it, because even if they excuse themselves from certain posts, both have a writing team that may still cover the sites/ companies/ startups where a conflict exists. I’d be lying if I denied that others don’t have similar conflicts in blogging, and yet we still need some context: the vast majority of the blogosphere are not investing in startups nor do they hold positions in VC firms. Simply while there may be a problem, a few don’t represent the whole.

The professional class

The root of the problem can be found in the pathways to blogging vs journalism. Journalists are mostly professional journalists, coming to their positions after studying journalism and climbing the greasy pole. Bloggers however don’t come to blogging after studying blogging, they come to blogging instead from different backgrounds, as diverse as the millions of niches that exist in the blogosphere today. That doesn’t necessarily make them lesser writers: you don’t need a degree in journalism to be a writer, but it does mean that the professional class rules and standards that have evolved around journalism over hundreds of years are often foreign to bloggers.

The lack of a professional class of bloggers, at least formally defined (there are professional bloggers) creates a church and state problem. Journalists are journalists first and foremost, but bloggers are often bloggers after entering blogging from another space, and is often the case, while never leaving their original jobs. Very few bloggers are just bloggers, and even those who are successful bloggers can be tempted to invest money or time in the fields they write on. There isn’t popular acceptance of blogging as a career in itself, nor do many bloggers who achieve that status see blogging is their only call in life.

Logic vs Greed

One very strong trait in blogging is one of specialization. Few journalists are taught to specialize in a particular area, and although they may end up covering particular niche areas, if they’ve always been a journalist it has been learned along the way. Bloggers often specialize is a space having come from it, and their specialization has been deepened through blogging. Often, bloggers know little else than the area they specialize in, at least when it comes to making investments.

In Arrington’s case, the conflict of interest issues aside, I’ve previously defended his right to invest in startups because he knows little else, well aside from domaining and being a lawyer, so where else is he going to park his money (and I’d note, even then, that his track record at startup investments is poor). That someone like Arrington, with a day to day understanding of startups would seek to park his money in startups makes financial sense. The same holds some what true for Om Malik as well: when you live and breathe startups, your side investments or activities will logically fall, from a financial perspective, in that space.

And yet, how much money is enough? Arrington has a multi-million dollar business, so its not as if he needs to invest in startups to make money. I don’t know Om’s situation as well, but I’d presume given the success of his blog network that the situation would be the same. Are both a case of simple greed, a desire for more and more money even when both already have it? Why isn’t blogging, and their related businesses enough? Is it in part the lack of respect given to the idea of blogging as a profession?

Perspective

Some in the mainstream media will use what I’ve written so far in this post as yet another reason to bash the blogosphere, but lets put this is perspective. The blogosphere isn’t perfect, but neither is journalism. My favorite line at new media events is that the difference between a blogger and a journalist is that a blogger knows they’re biased, a journalist pretends that they aren’t, and it’s very true. That some journalists have the temerity to stand before an audience and say that blogging is the great unwashed and that professional journalism is the last port of call for the truth makes me laugh even writing the line. Bias and potential conflicts of interest are thick on the ground in journalism. It could be Rupert Murdoch deciding who he’s going to back for President or Prime Minister this round, and his papers towing the line. It could be the magazine writer fired for writing a negative review of a sponsors product. It could be the political commentator who is paid to talk at political events because they are a favorite on one side or the other due to the bias in their political coverage, or the journalist who attends an event for free, and gets plowed with food and drink for positive coverage. Conflict of interest issues, and bias as both a directly related cause, or a sub-set leading back is just as prevalent in journalism than it is in blogging, and maybe even more so. That a few bloggers at the top are so blatant in crossing the lines may be a little unique, but that doesn’t mean that the blogosphere is somehow collectively a million times worse than traditional journalism because of it.

The challenges in this post face journalists in the same way they face bloggers, and as heritage media declines, and bloggers offer a level of competition never seen before in the space, those conflicts and issues in journalism are only going to get worse.

Solutions

The first blog appeared in 1996, and blogging really only came of age in the United States in 2004. When I launched The Blog Herald in 2003, I never once thought I’d make any money from it. There was little to no money in blogging, Adsense didn’t exist, and no sane person would have predicted what blogging has become today. The reality is, to some extent, that blogging is the wild west of journalism. Professional journalism has taken hundreds of years to get to where it is today, hundreds of years to construct rules and accepted norms. And yet along the way, and even today, it still faces challenges. Yellow journalism wasn’t an issue created by blogs, and conflicts of interest and bias in reporting are still alive and well despite the rules and expectations within the profession. Blogging doesn’t have those rules, but it has come a remarkably long way in a short time. That we are simply having this conversation is proof positive that blogging is evolving and that we can discuss these issues, and consider the challenges presented, and possibly consider some of the solutions.

The top of the blogosphere today looks more and more like professional journalism. The lines are blurring as top blogs become media companies, and newspapers embrace blogging. The us and them mentality for many is breaking down, and as it does, both cross pollinate. We’re seeing the solution here already. Blogging is young enough and smart enough to be open to taking on external ideas to improve its lot, and that may well include the conflict of interest standards that act in theory within professional journalism. Not perfectly applied by any stretch, but more and more so as the top blogs get bigger. The thing that some new media haters in heritage media won’t like is that before our eyes, the notion of bloggers is slowly being lost, as new media is embraced by all, and for those blogging for a living, or for top blogs, we all become journalists.

Conclusion

There’s some truth in what Drama 2.0 says, that ultimately professional bloggers will need to decide between being journalists or something else. We are seeing a sea change, one where we have created jobs that didn’t exist only 5 years ago, and one where in the coming years the idea of being a full time blogger will be something to aspire to, and a far more common job than it is today. The time will come where blogging is the be all for those working full time in the space, but we still aren’t quite there. We may also never get there, as the lines between traditional journalism and blogging merge.

Conflict of interest is not a crisis in blogging, even if we recognize that it is an issue. Collectively we should discuss the issue, and maybe our discussions can help define standards and best case rules that others can follow, but ultimately the final decision will come down to the market. Those that put themselves into such positions take a risk, and where they are not able to properly balance their conflicts and their blogging suffers, so to will readers leave, because you can only get away with these sorts of activities for so long in the blogosphere. Like it or not, accountability for your actions is far stronger in blogging than it has ever been in heritage media.

(image credit: Wired, Amazon)

Conflicts of Interest and Blogging is a post from: The Inquisitr

Now in terms of market opportunities, Yammer might go well, at least in targeting those companies that can’t be bothered installing a local install of Laconi.ca. Corporates like safe things, there’s a business plan attached, and presuming it will scale, most large corporations will buy anything. And it’s not as though they’ll fall over trying, because unlike most other startups presenting, they’re not really a startup in their own right, instead being a side project of Geni.

Valleywag has an interesting take on how Yammer won, but given I wasn’t at the event or involved, I don’t know the truth there, even if I do remember Arrington froffing at the mouth in excitement at the slightest mention of Geni in the past. My only observation is that if TechCrunch50 was focused on innovation and interesting ideas, it failed in picking Yammer, because taking microblogging and giving it a corporate veneer doesn’t yell original or innovative to me.

So now we know what it takes to win TechCrunch50: an old idea in a fresh coat of paint. If you’ve ever wanted to received a ridiculously large play check from Arrington for $50,000 in front of a crowd of people with serious hangovers (well, Calacanis anyway), here’s some ideas you can use to win next year. Tell em I sent you

Friender (Corporate FriendFeed)

FriendFeed for people who share a corporate email address. The service allows you to share links from the corporate intranet, and has a built in censorship tool for naughty words, such as innovation and original.

Blogoporate (Blogger for corporates)

What better way to practice astroturfing and spam than on your own corporate blog network. Blogoporate comes with support for Blogoporate Friend Connect, so you’ll never feel alone in your startup office of 5.

Fitbitmer (corporate Fitbit)

Big brother becomes a reality as this new whizbang dongle tracks your working day. Slacking off on the job, taking 2 minutes extra for lunch? Now corporate overlords can save millions through docking pay and on the spot firings

Seesmicer (corporate Seesmic)

What office isn’t complete without a daily message from the CEO, followed by 150 videos of corporate grovelling. The perfect communications tool for the 21st century.

Anything Peter Thiel tells you to make

This is what I’d put my money on.

If you have any ideas for next year you’d like to share with the community, leave a comment.

Winning ideas for TechCrunch50 2009 is a post from: The Inquisitr