The Inquisitr » techcrunch50

How to lose friends and anger people the TechCrunch way

Duncan Riley — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:22:40 +0000

Chris Shipley, the extraordinarily hard working executive producer of the bi-annual DEMO conference is stepping down this year, and taking over is Matt Marshall, founder of VentureBeat.

During Shipley’s reign at DEMO, the conference has served as an exception launch pad for tech startups and services, including well known names including Salesforce.com, TiVO, VMWare, WebEx, Palm Pilot and many, many more. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet Shipley, but those that have nearly exclusively talk Shipley’s overwhelming commitment to the business, and the amazing job she has done.

DEMO of course today has competition from the TechCrunch 50 conference, a 2 year old annual event that showcase startups fee free on stage, but charges for a massive demo pit and every other part of the conference. Rivalry and competition can be healthy, but from very early on TechCrunch 50 was promoted as a conference primarily focused on killing DEMO. What is a decent conference highlighting some amazing startups became quickly polluted by hate filled rhetoric aimed at DEMO, where as it could, and should be able to stand on its merits alone.

With Michael Arrington taking a month off, you’d think that maybe TechCrunch would maybe back off on the attacks. Add to this a “TechCrunch friend” in Matt Marshall taking over (VentureBeat partners TechCrunch in the Crunchies); a perfect opportunity to bury the hatchet and show some respect.

But you’d be wrong.

TechCrunch’s Erick Schnofield took the opportunity to double the venom in a little exercise of how to lose friends and anger people.

Class is a word completely lost on Schonfield. In attacking the opposition and calling them desperate, TechCrunch looks like the ones who are desperate.

Allen Stern gets it right with “Wait a Moment… Who is the Desperate One?”

In a very tight market, this sort of venom coming out of TechCrunch can and will hurt them when the conference comes around. They should be selling the event on merit, but instead they are damaging it with this rubbish.

The proof: the comments and widespread commentary on the post. There’s not a lot of people sticking up for TechCrunch over this, but plenty who are criticizing it, including previous supporters.

Best of luck to Shipley in what ever is next, and we look forward to catching some of DEMO online in March.

Dropbox: online storage done right

Duncan Riley — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:54:06 +0000

Dropbox officially launched at TechCrunch50 this week, and although they didn’t win (online storage fails the originality test more than corporate Twitter) they are a company worth looking at.

San Francisco based Dropbox started as a YCombinotor startup and went on to take a round from Sequoia, taking funding to $1.2 million. The Dropbox team is young, and stupid enough to believe they can make a business in a space where most give away storage for free, and others have failed. The business model, at least from what I can gather, revolves around charging people for additional storage above the 2gb they get for free. In Yes Minister speak, it’s a courageous business plan, and I wouldn’t be investing in the company based on it, but here’s why it might just work.

Dropbox is online storage done right.

The key selling points: quick and easy. The service supports Windows and Mac, and they’ve just launched a Linux client. Installation is easy, and on a Mac Dropbox appears in your places list, like any other folder. To use, you drop the file you want stored directly in, or save it directly to Dropbox from the program you are using, just like any other folder or location on your computer or private network. To access files, open Dropbox via Finder, and open the file, or access Dropbox from the program you’re in.

The biggest selling point for me: there’s no lag in opening a file unlike other services where you usually have to wait for the file to download. Using Dropbox feels like using files locally, even for someone like me on the other side of the world (try pinging a server in San Fran from Australia and you’ll know what I mean). In two months of use, I’ve never once had an issue with speed and ease of opening. It’s so good, that I switched from using my home network drive to share documents across computers to using Dropbox, because Dropbox was quicker! No, I don’t have a scientific speed test to prove that, I only know from using it. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but they have.

I’ve tried other online storage solutions before, and I still have iDisk access via my MobileMe account, but I’ve never stuck at one service for more than a couple of days due to the speed and ease of use issues. I’m two months in on Dropbox, and unless something comes along which is way better, I’m not giving it up.

Business plan aside, Dropbox is a winner. I test a lot of services, but far few end up being in the list of things I regularly use. Dropbox made that list.

Dropbox

Winning ideas for TechCrunch50 2009

Duncan Riley — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:02:36 +0000

Yammer was announced the winner of TechCrunch50 yesterday. For those not familiar with the product, you only need to know two words: corporate Twitter.

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.

Lipstick and Love over vodka shots

Fake Steve Gillmor — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:03:09 +0000

Our occasional contributor Fake Steve Gillmor returns…

For the last few weeks, The Inquisitr’s tech coverage has become so viscerally partisan that you could sense that the coverage was coming close to threatening the fundamental tenets of particle physics. Namely, that keeping your nose clean with Crunchmeme requires brown envelopes.

With the advent of 24 hour blogging and Google hit squads, the business of invading South America has a wag the dog feel about it. As Jason Calacanis became more and more drunk in his analysis of young blonde groupies, the best god could do was deny him his next bottle on an open mic. With ratings down this year, the cash flow may be harder to come by in 2009.

The celebrity circus obscured the fact that in the history of tech conferences, BlahBlahGirls will now become default slang for crappy site, hot older wife. They say that Stolly is filtered, clean and pure as the Google filters that delivered an airline hit. Filters through which we learn the “facts” on the ground, like how Russia started the war, even when we all know it was Georgia’s fault. These thin-skinned primadonnas run startups, fame whores at desks in their boxer shorts and waiting for the moment of inspiration from the next missive from god.

Not that I innately believe every message coming from the Google chiefs; often the nuance of their answers carries money dressed in Adsense units. If Silverlight can play comfortably in Chrome, with a nod toward warewolfs and the loch ness monster to fill in the Linux blank, then Chrome becomes mesh toast, lightly buttered with cream cheese and freshly caught shrimp paste, cooked by a Kindle chef. If I have flash on the brain, it’s not from the streaming porn I’m researching, but from the paparazzi taking pictures of me this week.

The Netflix strategy makes renting porn a less onerous process, with no late fees and a large catalog to choose from, and yet will people pay when they can download it for free? Or will my partner in crime have already cut the net off through excessive usage?

I want to conclude though by thanking god for giving me such a great personal blog where I get paid to write the occasional article, and nothing much else happens in between. Who had the cutest dog at the event you ask? car racing wins, the Ford puppy was fat.

What startups can learn from fluffy bunnies

Duncan Riley — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:49:28 +0000

With so much vitriol this week as TechCrunch50 tried to kill DEMO, then got trumped by Steve Jobs, we need a positive antidote to the negativity. What better way to consider how startups can be better than considering something so universally loved by all: fluffy bunnies.

Here’s what startups can learn from fluffy bunnies.

Fluffy bunnies are cute

In a week where Scoble called every company presenting at DEMO awful due to their websites, style remains an important factor in the mix. Fluffy bunnies are nice to look at, and so should your website. You may have the best idea in the world, but people will be repulsed if your website looks like a Chinese Crested Dog instead of a fluffy bunny.

Fluffy bunnies live in warrens

In an age of environmental awareness, and low carbon footprints, cheap sustainable accommodation is the name of the game. Less than a quarter of the companies presenting at DEMO came from Silicon Valley, proving that you don’t have to have the flashest office in Palo Alto to succeed.

Fluffy bunnies have several exits for safety and quick escapes in their warrens

Starting a site like Twitter with no business model on the idea that some where along the line you might have a viable business was never a good strategy, and that’s even more so now with a slowing economy. Startups need to focus on an exit strategy, and ways to get out if things aren’t going well. Bunnies always know their exists, and they don’t wait around praying for miracles.

Fluffy bunnies have eyes on the sides of the head, delivering a 190 degree field of vision

Know your competition, see the threats and opportunities, and stay on your toes. You need to be focused on your goals, but never focus blindly on them, and learn to except that things can and do change.

Less than 10 percent of all abandoned wild baby bunnies survive.

You’ve left the safety of your corporate job chasing your dream, but the bad news is that most startups fail. 10% on a good day survive.

Fluffy bunnies are excellent at jumping.

How high would you like me to jump, Mr VC? Sometimes you’ve got to show off and spin a little to close the round you need. Practice your skills, and be prepared to jump in when the opportunity arises.

Fluffy bunnies can’t throw up. They can gag, but they can’t vomit.

Stay strong, learn to not fall to pieces when things aren’t going your way. Try not to lash out, learn to gag on your frustration instead.

Fluffy bunnies have long ears for gathering sounds and determining where the sound came from

Learn to network well. Be seen, and use the opportunity learn. Listen to what people are saying about your business and the competition. Talk to smart people. Always be open to feedback, and be prepared to take the criticism as a learning experience, not a kick to the head.

(img credits: 1/ 2)

OtherInbox wants to cure email overload [free invites]

Duncan Riley — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:47:10 +0000

OtherInbox launched this week at TechCrunch50 and offers a different take on email overload.

OtherInbox assigns users a new domain name such as yourname.otherinbox.com, then allows you to make an infinite number of e-mail addresses on the fly, for example .com or .com. Each of these addresses corresponds to an e-mail folder in your OtherInbox account, which is auto-generated once the address has been confirmed.

The selling point is that your e-mail is already organized for you, instead of having to set up folders and rules. For those who don’t want to use the service as their primary inbox, OtherInbox can send you an e-mail once per day with a summary of emails received.

The video of their presentation at TC50 below. We have 25 free invites for Inquisitr readers. Click here to sign up, first in, first served.

OtherInbox.com

100 Free Akoha kits for Inquisitr readers

Duncan Riley — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:50:35 +0000

Social gaming startup Akoha is presenting at TechCrunch50 tomorrow, and we’ve got 100 free Akoha starter kits for Inquisitr readers.

The company has asked that I don’t post any information about what Akoha is prior to their TechCrunch50 presentation, which is fine by me, because I have no idea what they do either

From what I can gather from their website, they are offering some sort of social gaming platform, which may or may not involve software (hence the kits), and there may be some community good from the offering.

Visit this link and enter your details for the free kit. I don’t have confirmation that they’ll post kits outside of the United States, but they had a drop down of Australian states, so take it as a 80% chance that they will. First in, best dressed, and we only have 100…well actually 99 invites, I used the first one Note also that the link will not work after they present at the conference, so you’ll need to be quick.

Akoha

TC50 v DEMO: The startups are the losers

Duncan Riley — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:47:44 +0000

As DEMOFall08 comes to a close today and TechCrunch 50 drags on for another day (it’s a 3 day event), over 100 startups will have appeared on stage in front of audiences in San Francisco and San Diego, hopefully opening new doors and delivering much needed exposure.

With the two events running side by side, you’d think the volume would generate more buzz and a ton of coverage. And yet, the opposite has occurred. For TechCrunch50 in particular, the startup coverage is way down on last year, to the point that not even Gabe Rivera can manually correct Techmeme to compensate for it. Where at various points during last years event nearly every story on Techmeme was TechCrunch50 related, the conference has struggled to even get a top headline, being relegated instead down the page most of the time, and with a lot less mentions.

DEMO hasn’t fared well either, at least on Techmeme (which is really no surprise), but the coverage across tech blogs is more thorough, and more leading sites would appear to be covering DEMO companies than TechCrunch50 sites. Of course there is another reason for that: the media partners for DEMO include the cream of the Web 2.0 blogs minus TechCrunch, so you’d expect that level of coverage. Couple that to pre-conference briefings, that allowed people like me to cover the event from Australia even when the presentations were in the middle of my night. I’ve received exactly one email from a startup at TC50, and that was after the presentation.

So what happened? Why didn’t both conferences get more coverage, giving more airtime to the hard working startups at both events?

The basics: intentionally running TechCrunch50 at the same time of DEMO caused people to pick sides, and as a consequence some of the bigger sites covering TechCrunch50 last year are not doing so this year (although there is some cross over). TechCrunch50 as a stand alone event not up against DEMO was THE only game in town last year when it ran, and as a consequence it was THE news for two days. In trying to kill the competition, Arrington and Calacanis have actually damaged their own event by dividing attention.

The marketing BS didn’t help. As I’ve said previously, and as I’m hearing from people on the ground this week, TechCrunch50 is a great event, well organized (aside from WiFi), and has a great mix of people. Last year it had goodwill because although the DEMO must die meme was mentioned, it wasn’t the main focus, and people felt comfortable supporting both events. This year, a lot of the goodwill was lost due to a vitriolic, often hate filled marketing pitch. It’s hard to say you’re all about putting startups first when you’re trying to kill the other conference they can present at, and are bad mouthing Chris Shipley, someone I’ve never met, but who I’ve always heard positive things about, and is generally well liked in the space.

And then there was karma, delivered in a bucket load by Steve Jobs. Throw in a Zune or two for good measure as well. It has to be poetic justice that in going after DEMO on the same days, TechCrunch50 then had to deal with a Steve Jobs iPod launch in the middle of the event. Startups presenting at TechCrunch50? really? because the only news story in town today is the iPods, and NBC coming back to iTunes.

If TechCrunch50 hadn’t been about killing DEMO, and was held later in September like it was last year, does anyone seriously think that the level of coverage would be as low as it is now?

TechCrunch50 will still make a lot of money for Arrington and Calacanis, and will undoubtedly be called a success. But there are losers. The startups are the losers. Instead of being given the best opportunity to gain widespread coverage, and maybe even a chunk of new users, startups at both events have had to compete in a sea of noise and although some may have received some good coverage, most may have only received a passing link and a standardized paragraph on what they do. Many will return home, count their costs, and realize that although it might have been cool to present after Ashton Kutcher, or before god himself (Walt Mossberg), the benefits were low to non-existent.

Hopefully next year some of the smart people around Arrington, such as Heather Harde, and even Scoble, will convince him that being a community player first is the right direction to head in, and that the ultra-competitiveness damages Arrington himself, TechCrunch50 and the TechCrunch brand. Being a community player helps startups, and wasn’t the the original point of creating TechCrunch50 in the first place?

(original image source: Loic LeMeur)

TC50: Demo Pit angry over lack of WiFi

Duncan Riley — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:41:58 +0000

TechCrunch50 has been plagued by a lack of internet connectivity, according to emails we’ve received and other reports online.

As well as affecting people on the floor, the biggest losers from the WiFi problems are the 100 companies in the demo pit, who from one account I have are furious, particularly given that unlike the presenting companies, they had to pay to be at the conference.

Mixed reports on EVDO and 3G access. Some demo pit companies do have cards, but coverage isn’t great. The issue being that when you’re demonstrating a web startup, having access to the internet to demonstrate your product is a necessity.

Here’s some of the feedback via Twitter

“Demoing Powerset at TC50, in between Zivity (good location) and Wixi. But still no WiFi? Wishin’ I were at DEMO.” Mark Johnson on a stall in the demo pit.

“tc50 demopit is just a pit right now. No wifi, no demo.” matteofabiano

A wry observation: “Funny. There are more tweets about the broken WiFi at TC50 than about the actual event… ” schillmoeller

There does appear to be some good news for companies in the demo pit though:

“There’s good news & bad news. Since the wifi at #TC50 was down most of today, today’s Demo Pitters are invited back tomorrow. Yay!/Ugh! “ J-Strizzle

Even Scoble couldn’t stay on message

“I hear that at Demo the wifi works. Not here at TC50.”

As one email to me put it: “I know the attention this amateur hour gets is frustrating the hell out of them.”

If you have any thoughts on the debacle or inside information, leave a comment, or send us an email. We’ll also consider running any anonymous rants.

(source image credit: Magerleauges)

Kara Swisher compares Arrington to Britney Spears

Duncan Riley — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:18:53 +0000

Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg where on stage today at DEMO, and the question of DEMO vs TechCrunch50 came up. Kara is one of the best tech reporters on the planet, and she didn’t mince her words. The money quote: “being lectured in journalism ethics by Michael Arrington is like getting parenting tips from Britney Spears”.

Clip via Allen Stern at Centernetworks:

TechCrunch50: $3.5 million x Disingenuous

Duncan Riley — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:02:16 +0000

Brad Stone in the New York Times has finally published his TechCrunch50 vs Demo post. I spoke to Stone last week on the subject, but obviously my so-called venom towards Michael Arrington wasn’t showing because I wasn’t quoted. Arrington has responded here, half calling out Stone for not focusing on the positives, but then has to stick the boot in to DEMO again.

Lets start on the positives. TechCrunch40 last year rocked, and I’m willing to bet that TechCrunch50 this year will be better again. In some ways I’m sad I won’t be attending. It’s a top notch event that highlights some great startups, and offers a wealth of networking opportunities. The TechCrunch staff also work their backsides off in the lead up to the event, so it has the heart and soul Arrington feels the need to share in his post. Indeed, I still don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of people work as hard as the TechCrunch team for last years conference, and that includes everyone for the extremely talented Heather Harde, through to the ever reliable interns.

But here’s my issue, and this is what I told Stone when I was asked: if this is really all about startups, and doing the best for startups, they wouldn’t be running it the same time as DEMO, and they wouldn’t be trying to “kill” DEMO as Jason Calacanis so nicely puts it. If they were serious about putting startups first, they would be focused only on creating more opportunities for startups to be discovered, and they’d allow their event to stand on its own merits without the need to constantly trash talk the opposition. Are we not better off as a web community having both DEMO and TechCrunch50?

Then there’s the profit. Stone says its $3.5 million. How charitable that in helping startups the profit could be as high as $3.5 million (I’d think it’s closer to $2 million, but it’s still 7 figures). I don’t begrudge them a profit, and indeed good on them for being able to turn a million each for both Arrington and Calacanis in the split. But here’s the thing: if it’s not about Payola and all about the greater good, isn’t it grossly disingenuous to be playing the charity/ anti-Payola line when all TechCrunch50 does is slightly shift the goalposts on the money coming in. Demo pit attendees pay…they pay half, but if they want two on the stand they pay the $3k. There’s 100 of those. Then there’s the sponsors. Arrington tells Stone that the sponsors get no special access to the startups, but does anyone seriously think the sponsors pay to get their logo on a screen? I haven’t checked the speakers rostrum/ judges panel, but if there wasn’t some cross over I’d be surprised. They must get something from paying up, VC’s are in the business of making money, not handing it over for no return to line Jason’s and Arrington’s pockets. Maximizing access to startups? $2995 a ticket if you want to watch, and there’s 1000+ attendees. Allow for some of them to be free press passes, but still, access remains the domain of the wealthy few, not necessarily the best people to pitch to.

Prize Money: a paltry $50,000. Embarrassingly low given the profit the event delivers.

If they were really doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, if they really believed that the DEMO model is fatally flawed, and if they really wanted to put on the BEST show for startups, they’d run the event at break even. They’d run the DEMO pit for free, they cut the cost of the tickets, or better still they’d hand pick the audience so as to maximize the best possible group for the presenting companies to pitch to, after all, isn’t charging $2995 for a ticket audience payola?

Of course, they’ll never do any of that, but as long as they run around playing the destroy DEMO/ best for startups marketing pitch, they do themselves a grave disservice. Every time DEMO is trash talked, it appears to most sane people to be more of an insecurity from those doing the trash talk, than any real reflection on the model. Put on a great event, but STFU with the DEMO hating and let your actions in the delivery of the event speak for itself.