If you are a startup, techcrunch is a great place to get a bunch of beta traffic from. Most of the people who post take a positive look at new products, evaluate and make encouraging comments. Even they have something negative to say it is usually constructive.
The great thing is, you get a lot of traffic at no cost. You can argue about the quality, nonetheless, you get a lot of traffic. You get indexed by search engines quicker and getting listed on techcrunch says that you have built a product with reasonable quality. This worked as a great PR tool!
In the boom times, they really did not have anything negative to publish about companies unless it was outrageously bad. Now that times are tough, every business model is being put to test, startups are not liking the potential negative coverage. Added to it, Michael Arrington’s tone has changed - reflecting his current doom & gloom outlook for economy. Techcrunch deadpool and layoff tracker are now getting a lot more attention. Deadpool has been around for a while and layoff tracker is new.
Entrepreneurs are not liking the negative coverage and are acting like cry babies. They make up some weird excuses about how coming up with new business models is hard and how “efforts should be lauded”. Tech crunch is on the defensive, explaining how reporting the failures is also part of their job.
I have two words for these whining entrepreneurs - GROW UP.
Startups enjoyed their day in the sun, getting good coverage for building simple features, getting good runway to experiment with new business models on someone else’s cash. The reward for coming up with a new business model that scales/works is financial. You turn into a millionaire. If that business model doesn’t work, investors loose their money. Your resume looks great no matter what. Now, if you are not liking a little bit of the negative attention you are getting - deal with it. This is real life and real business. Techcrunch and other bloggers are not here to “laud” your efforts if you not adapting to changing markets and falling on your face. They are not here to sugarcoat company’s events even if you are gallantly trying to adjust to changing markets. What’s wrong with calling a spade a spade? I know it doesn’t put an entrepreneur’s company is the best light. So what? Why should they? Hire a PR firm if you want that.
Techcrunch is not obligated to tell anyone if they themselves have hard times financially. But i expect they will be open. If they are not, There are other blogs/bloggers who can take that responsibility.
As for “throwing the deadpool in deadpool” - my suggestion is that if you don’t like what’s on techcrunch and other blogs - unsubscribe. If people don’t want to hear about this news and a lot of people unsubscribe then techcrunch will follow the market. I - for one - definitely want to know about all the news regarding startups, even if it is negative. In fact, this real, no spin version of events is really what everyone wants when they look at a startup’s success or failure. If you ask any entrepreneur, all of their startups would be some sort of success.
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