Gawker
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journalists in peril
TechCrunch Editor Survives Vicious Rwandan Baboon Attack
Traveling abroad is dangerous for the media. Take TechCrunch's Sarah Lacy for instance. She's in Rwanda, writing a book or something, when a baboon attacked her breakfast. Thankfully, she works for Michael Arrington, so she has experience handling deranged primates. More »
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Comment by atlasspanked: As someone who's spent time in the bushveldt, all I can say is baboons suck. They're the cockroaches of the... 2 Responses | Other threads
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Tech Journo Catfight!
Gadget Nerds Can't Discuss Ethics Without Devolving into Schoolyard Taunts
Tech commentator Leo LaPorte and TechCrunch's Michael Arrington were doing yesterday's Gillmor Gang show when Arrington provoked LaPorte over free-product disclosures. LaPorte freaked out and shut down the show, but not before spewing colorful invective at Arrington first. More »
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By Foster KamerComment by Michael Arrington: Seriously, the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. I thought we were talking about brie. 1 Responses | Other threads
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techcrunch
Michael Arrington Wishes He Could Quit Us
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, left distraught after a stranger spat on him at a tech conference in Munich, promised he'd take February off. Two days in, he's having a hard time leaving the Internet. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by DaTruf: How can we miss him if he won't go away? 2 Responses | Other threads
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michael arrington
Why Internet Fame Is Worth a Warm Bucket of Spit
Fame has always had its downsides. But Internet fame, like the kind TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington has accumulated, provides all the downsides and very few advantages. Now he wants to go into hiding. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by categorically: I'm beginning to figure this stuff out. In the middle east they throw a shoe at you. In europe they spit on... 2 Responses | Other threads
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twitterati
Twitter Spits on Cold Racists
The Twitterati did not have a good day. Professional web personality Amanda Congdon hates racists, crackpot visionary Jeff Jarvis still hates the media, but TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is hated most of all! More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Shamoononon, Vampire Grater - Now SWF: Also, is it Los Angeles or Louisiana that is full of racists? 3 Responses | Other threads
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field guide
Shira Lazar, Kevin Rose's Latest Fling
Having famously "plowed through" San Francisco's eligible bachelorettes, Digg founder Kevin Rose went L.A. for his most recent paramour, Shira Lazar. Who is this Web-video wannabe with links to Dov Charney and Julia Allison? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by LilyBartleby: She's an upgrade from his previous paramour, Roseys Palm. 9 Responses | Other threads
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michael arrington
A tech blogger's quixotic war on PR
The comic spectacle of Michael Arrington, the tech industry's most overbearing, self-important blogger, taking on Silicon Valley's PR apparatus, is playing out live on the Internet. Bring your popcorn.
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By Owen ThomasComment by pepelicious: Good god, the top stories bar now shows a skeletal Steve Jobs, portly Dan Nye, bloaty Arrington, that security guy... 5 Responses | Other threads
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we read twitter so you don't have to
Twitter ad system lets you shill automatically
One reason a lot of Twitterholics love Twitter is that there are no advertisements to interrupt the first-person human communication. Now TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington has found a German startup, Be-A-Magpie, that offers to pay Twitterers to mix ads into their status updates. The service sends tweets from your account, with your name and face plus their 140-character advertiser's message. I love watching Arrington smolder over the idea, because he's right. The Internet was built by people trying to get away from this sort of thing.
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By Paul BoutinComment by sample032: And I was hoping the future of twitter would be product placement. 1 Responses | Other threads
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toogle many googlers
Google now lets TechCrunch pretend we don't exist
With a name like SearchWiki, you know it's going to be clever, yet stupid. Google has spent ten years and I don't know how many hundred million dollars refining a rocket-science algorithm for ranking Internet search results. Now, a few Google coders have whipped up a feature that lets you boost or cut the scores of individual websites from your own future searches. For example, grudge-o-matic TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington can click his own posts to the top of any Google search he performs. With one more click, he can remove Valleywag entirely from his life. That frees us to post as many photos of Big Mike's girlfriends as we want. Everybody wins! Personal note to Google engineer Amay: Next time you make a video, try to go longer than seven seconds without saying "cool."
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By Paul BoutinComment by sample032: Finally I'll be able to ignore search results from the tech support website (its name escapes me) that requires registration... 2 Responses | Other threads
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Fright Masks
The 5 scariest people in Silicon Valley
Halloween's on a Friday. With people already more worried about keeping their jobs than actually doing them, you might as well plan on writing the workday off. Trying to figure out a clever costume in which to pester your remaining coworkers? Valleywag has done the work for you. Print up one of these masks, designed by Valleywag interim creative director Richard Blakeley, on the finest-quality office paper you can steal from the supply closet, follow our tips on how to act the part, and you're good to go. Select from our list: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by cv: Your list sucks. Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP Tom Perkins, 'nuff said Katie Cotton, Apple PR exec... 7 Responses | Other threads
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Fright Masks
Michael Arrington, TechCrunch editor
How to wear it: Biz-dev blue dress shirt and pleated pants. More » -
great moments in journalism
Top 10 commenters TechCrunch is afraid of
I understand it's still Tough Times, Tough Decisions month. But a layoff at TechCrunch would have been better than a post by TechCrunch's leader criticizing the site's commenters. It's a slow news morning here, too, so I'll reblog the best entry, No. 3: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by kimbjo: luckily i use my neighbours free wifi connection to surf valleywag. 1 Responses | Other threads
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explainer
Global economic collapse actually Larry and Sergey's fault
Davos, baby! The partying at the World Economic Forum, the annual conference held in a Swiss resort town that has become synonymous with the event, was "out of control," organizer Klaus Schwab now admits. The Wall Street bosses and Beltway bandits were too busy having a ball to keep their eye on it, even as the economy lurched towards the abyss. This strikes me as revisionist history; the Times reported on the nervous mood at this year's Davos So who kept the event festive? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by madox: Google could have held a key-role in demonstrating what a company needs to do during a serious economic downturn; instead... more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
TechCrunch heads for the deadpool
Michael Arrington is a has-been, and he knows it. When the smoke clears after the crash and burn of the money machine behind today's tech startups, there's one word no one will ever write into a business plan again: Web 2.0. For Arrington, whose TechCrunch blog was born with the mission of tracking what he called "Web 2.0" startups, that's a problem. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Marketing NYC: Why has this feud started between you and Mike. This is getting vicious. What on earth has he done specifically to warrant... 2 Responses | Other threads
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meltdowns
TechCrunch takes the fun out of layoffs
The TechCrunch Layoff Tracker is a handy reference tool for checking who has or hasn't done the mandatory 20% staff reduction this month. Like CrunchBase, it's a handy resource for looking up baseball stats on Web 2.0 team owners, to predict who may or may not catch the ball this time. (I saw W over the weekend. Bear with me.) What's missing from the Layoff Tracker? More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by sggrf: i bet we see techcrunch on this list:) 1 Responses | Other threads
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lawsuits
Attention-starved startup sues Michael Arrington for attention
Earthcomber, a Chicago startup, filed suit against Loopt, a Mountain View startup, for allegedly infringing on a patent that lets "a system and method for locating and notifying a user of a person, place or thing having attributes matching the user’s stated preferences." Yawn. To spice things up, Earthcomber today added TechCrunch, the blog of blowhard Michael Arrington, to the lawsuit. Why? Ostensibly because Earthcomber's CEO couldn't find Arrington's phone number. So much for locating users. [TechCrunch] -
great moments in pr
New tool filters your drunken, late-night emails
Mail Goggles is a Google-built version of a feature email users have joked about for decades: It makes you stop, think and pass a sobriety test before sending messages after a certain hour or on weekends. The name is a pun on Beer Goggles — but it gets the logic backwards. Somebody must have been drunk. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by robinwauters: It's Mail Goggles, Not Mail Googles. 3 Responses | Other threads
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conflicts of interest
Michael Arrington wants you to read about MySpace Music, not his love life
If you didn't believe our report that TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is in bed with MySpace's top flack, Dani Dudeck, read the obsessive startup blogger's latest story on MySpace Music, which claims that MySpace has "streamed" 1 billion songs. Considering that most MySpace profiles are set to start playing a song, whether you like it or not, as soon as you visit them, that's not that impressive. Arrington leads his story by comparing MySpace streams to iTunes sales, and then acknowledges it's not a "fair comparison." His readers, in the comments, went much further, citing our report and questioning whether the affair with Dudeck clouded Arrington's judgment. Those comments have been — what's the word? — unpublished.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Rachel Marsden: Is his girlfriend beating him up, or does he always have 2 black eyes? 3 Responses | Other threads
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loopt
Michael Arrington offers to be your friend, if you have an iPhone
The folks at Loopt managed to garner a heaping helping of positive publicity from Michael Arrington by releasing a tool allowing readers of Arrington's TechCrunch blog to stalk each other out in the real world. And not only will it help you raise all sorts of privacy concerns among perfect strangers, Arrington himself will tell you where he is in the world at all times. So it shouldn't be hard to find him when he ditches the plebes at the next TechCrunch event for a Scotch-fueled afterparty. (Photo by Andrew Mager)
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By Jackson WestComment by wchan_sea_wat: Great! Now I'll be able to tell Mike everything. 1 Responses | Other threads
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details, details
Correct out-of-touch New York style rag's Internet gossip!
It's complicated. God, is it ever. The same October Details story that follows around New York's "Internet playboys" and their bicoastal hangers-on runs with this chart of who dated, funded, or hated in this overdocumented side of the Web scene. So sweet to know we're not the only ones keeping a scorecard, but one of its subjects, Caroline McCarthy, claims there's inaccuracies! Let's do Details and the kids recently fanning their fameballs from the coverage a favor and fix it up then. Ready? Let loose in the comments with your errata.
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Comment by Duncan: Arrington dated Julia Allison? really? since when did a casual fuck count as dating? 2 Responses | Other threads
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conflicts of interest
Michael Arrington's MySpace Music review, the 100-word version
We know what TechCrunch's Michael Arrington got out of sleeping with MySpace PR executive Dani Dudeck: Screenshots of MySpace Music before the service launched. But what was Dudeck's quid to Arrington's quo? To find that, it's worth examining all the nice things Arrington has posted about her employer over the past couple of months. More »
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Comment by kimbjo: sounds fishy. i don't believe he'd be smart enough to keep his mouth shut long enough to get some nookie.... more » | Other threads
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geek love
Michael Arrington pounding his MySpace source
When TechCrunch, the blog for startup fetishists, published leaked screengrabs of MySpace's just-launched music service, Michael Arrington wrote: "We’ve been pounding our sources for screenshots of the new service for weeks without any luck." Now we know what he meant. A tipster tells us, and another source confirms, that Arrington's been dating Dani Dudeck, MySpace's VP of global communications, for months. More »
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Comment by Rachel Marsden: Also, people who use "wait for it" as a splicer should be stood up against the nearest wall and shot. 2 Responses | Other threads
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conflicts of interest
Was TechCrunch50 rigged?
The anointing of Yammer as the winner of TechCrunch50 has raised questions about how the startup-launch conference operates. Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, has made much of the fact that he and fellow event organizer Jason Calacanis don't charge startups to present at the show, as established rival Demo does. But people who attended the show are saying behind his back that the contest was rigged in favor of a pet startup of Arrington's with ties to one of the event's sponsors. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by calleynye: The point of TC50 isn't about the $50k. It's about presenting it to a room of full VCs, press,... 3 Responses | Other threads
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party report
Loïc Le Meur, Segway instructor
Please tell me someone has pictures of Seesmic founder Loïc Le Meur giving small-time technology investor Michael Arrington Segway riding lessons outside 330 Ritch for the TechCrunch50 conference's closing party. For now, I'll have to settle for Siqi Chen, left, and Alex Le, right, the guys behind Facebook widget Friends For Sale, at the Plista party at Fluid. Where's the afterparty? It's not at the W or the Four Seasons. Maybe Mahalo chief Jason Calacanis is drinking responsibly tonight and has turned in early, but I'm pretty sure Arrington is up drinking scotch somewhere.
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By Jackson WestComment by michaellamb: the thought of seeing that tub of lard teetering around on a weird looking scooter is enough to make me... more » | Other threads
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techcrunch50
Michael Arrington almost made to wait in line with plebes
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington just wants to get a scotch and hit on girls at the Seesmic party at 330 Rich, but ended up stuck in the multi-hour-long line outside the closing night party. Dutiful Seesmic founder Loïc Le Meur personally came out to escort him past the velvet ropes. For a second there, people might have come to the conclusion that TechCrunch50 was some kind of democracy.
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By Jackson WestComment by superpixel99: Pretty funny, although I have video of Brian Lam being made to wait at the Giz/Ars WWDC party last year.... 1 Responses | Other threads
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techcrunch50
Jason Calacanis has no idea how much vodka he drank last night
The closing party for TechCrunch50 kicks off tonight, and our spy will be bringing us live updates as the evening unfolds. Hungover organizer Jason Calacanis, who got so sauced he couldn't remember what city he was in last night and showed up late this morning, was offered a bottle of Finnish vodka from a wantrepreneur, soliciting a bit of a reprimand from TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington — who also demanded that Calacanis delete his drunken postings to Twitter (Calacanis complied).
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By Jackson WestComment by Nicholas Carlson: "Nice article in Valleywag about you by the way. Not that I ever read that." Hi Mike! more » | Other threads
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party report
Valleywag spy goes to TechCrunch50 so you don't have to
A Valleywag spy attended the second day of TechCrunch50 and then followed the crowd to a dinner, a party and an after party. He learned that blondes love Mark Cuban, Jason Calacanis likes to drink, and flack turned TechCrunch blogger Calley Nye knows how to leave with a billionaire. Also, our spy reports that the startup that's getting everyone's attention at the show itself is doing it "through the use of hot and semi naked booth girls." All that and more in his bullet-point recap, below. More »
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Comment by nicolejordan: Dearest anonymous poster (I know who you are, btw) It was nice to have you at my personal friends and family... 2 Responses | Other threads
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immigration
TechCrunch50 opens ceremonies with national anthem
Bless their little hearts, TechCrunch50 organizers Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington have had someone sing the national anthem to kick off each day of their startup demonstration conference. Even we here at Valleywag, who will presumably believe anything, couldn't believe this. Marxists, Objectivists and Kurt Vonnegut can all agree: drawing national boundaries and exciting nationalist sentiment through propaganda was so last century. And to have Arrington's former paramour Meghan Asha try to hit that high note in a room full of pitch-perfect math geeks, as pictured here? Deadly. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by michaellamb: I am starting to feel sorry for Megan now. She so doesn't get it. We're building this cadre of lame... 7 Responses | Other threads
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nerdfight
Michael Arrington mocked by Kara Swisher at Demo
In the war of words being fought between the organizers of the DemoFall and TechCrunch50 startup conferences, AllThingsD reporter Kara Swisher unleashed quite a salvo yesterday: "Being lectured on journalism ethics by Michael Arrington is like getting parenting tips from Britney Spears." Zing! She proceeds to call out the TechCrunch50 organizers attacks on Demo for what they are — "Marketing 101." Walt Mossberg was a bit more diplomatic, offering more subtle jabs like, "It never occurred to me not to come here [Demo]." Here at Valleywag, we maintainthe highest standards of impartiality through our willingness to get kicked out of any and all such events.
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By Jackson WestComment by the_gdude: Ugh... why is she famous? She's fucking terrible. 1 Responses | Other threads
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techcrunch
Michael Arrington didn't even make Vanity Fair's kiddie-table list
This weekend's San Jose Mercury News profile of TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, so obsequiously flattering that some wondered whether the writer was auditioning for a job at the tech blog, included an inadvertent slam. Evidence of Arrington's importance: According to TechCrunch marketing VP Sarah Ross, Arrington was considered for Vanity Fair's "New Establishment" power list, but didn't make the final cut. So he's sort of famous, right? Just one problem with that theory. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by AnonymousRealist: Does anyone with half a brain think Arrington belongs in *any* issue of Vanity Fair? more » | Other threads
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conflicts of interest
TechCrunch owner's startup slips into TechCrunch50 lineup
The TechCrunch50 is out and again the list reads like a self-parody. Shryk? Swype? There is one interesting startup on the list, however: Fotonauts. Not because we know or care to know what Fotonauts does. We're just intrigued by Fotonauts president Keith Teare's habit of saying he owns 10 percent of TechCrunch. Isn't that a refreshing bit of honesty about how a list like the TechCrunch50 gets put together? More »
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Comment by WagCurious: Could this be related to the internet-only device (being promoted by Michael) that the San Jose Mercury News was all... 2 Responses | Other threads
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shira lazar
Demo vs. TechCrunch beef has entrepreneurs chewing softly
It's the echo chamber's busiest week of the year. Chris Shipley kicked off the Demo startup conference on Sunday in San Diego. Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis have amassed an army forTechCrunch20TechCrunch40TechCrunch50. We're curious: Which one are you going to, and why? Tell us in the comments. One prominent tech blogger told Valleywag he's splitting his time between the two shows because he doesn't want to offend either Shipley or Arrington. More »
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Comment by Rachel Marsden: Calacanine (that's 1 dude and 2 dogs, technically) is one of my favourite people EVAR. I have no idea how... 1 Responses | Other threads
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party report
Michael Arrington drinks Valleywag's milkshake at TechCrunch meetup
Jason Calacanis, the Mahalo CEO and email list administrator, and Michael Arrington, editor of TechCrunch and hero to hopeless website creators, held a meetup in Menlo Park last night for finalists in their TechCrunch50 startup beauty contest at the British Bankers Club. Our spy infiltrated the proceedings — and served Arrington a milkshake. "He didn't seem too happy about it," reports our informant. More photos from the event — including a surprise appearance from CNET TV star and former TechCrunch writer Natali Del Conte, who came after the proceedings were over for a brief tête-à-tête with Arrington. More » -
blogging for dollars
TechCrunch drops blog format for newspapery look
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington has said that he wants to displace CNET as the tech industry's top news site. His redesigned home page suggests that TechCrunch won't so much defeat CNET as become CNET. Arrington has replaced the Boing Boingy full-posts-in-reverse-order blog format on TC's home page with much more of a news-site layout. There's a top story with a custom-written "deck," to use newsroom jargon, meant to get you to click through to the whole article. It's similar to the format used by most newspaper sites. Here's a demo of the click-through trick: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Paul Boutin: @Internetguy2008: I just don't take to RSS readers. I don't know why. I set them up and then... 1 Responses | Other threads
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savvyauntie
Getting rich as a mommyblogger without the messy mommy part
Add mommyblogging to the long list of maternal entitlements. It's the old story of exploiting your childbearing for commercial gain, this time online! Ah, but even ladybloggers without kids can get a piece of the mommyblogger ad budget. According to the Washington Post, Melanie Notkin's SavvyAuntie.com had advertisers and "a well-known venture capitalist" after her from day one, interested in cashing in with her on on the "parenting site for nonparents." We're reminded of PlanetOut's fundraising days, when venture capitalists told the gay and lesbian site's founders that they should refocus the site to appeal to gays and their hip straight friends. Notkin has a point, though: If you're going to buy your best girlfriend's brood a Barack Obama onesie, shouldn't you be allowed to blog about it, add affiliate e-commerce links, and run ads on the page, too? More »
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Comment by raincoaster: "a fashion and beauty magazine but with tremendous depth" Hilarious! You don't have to look that far to find a non-mommy... more » | Other threads
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clips
Shatner to Arrington: "What are you doing?"
For $149, you too can go to LiveAutographs.com and get a personalized video and autograph from William Shatner, Carmen Electra, Hulk Hogan, Ted Nugent, about half the cast of Lost, or Battlestar Galactica's Cyloneriffic Tricia Helfer. TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington blew a couple of Benjamins to test the site and sure enough, here's Shatner's videotaped greeting. Drop the price to ten bucks and we've got a business model for Julia Allison.
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By Paul BoutinComment by raincoaster: Awesomenosity in spades! Why wasn't this available for my birthday? A personal, snarky greeting from The Shat himself? Life, my... more » | Other threads
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quotable
Michael Arrington "classless" says Stewart Alsop
Reporter Brad Stone jumps into the fracas between the Demo and TechCrunch 50 conference organizers, with venture capitalist and Demo founder Stewart Alsop saying of Arrington's public baiting: More »
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By Jackson WestComment by Jackson West: @michaellamb: I'll take it. Especially since I'm one of the poors who can't fly to San Diego. more » | Other threads
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techcrunch
Arrington to PR people: Please die
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington's latest barbed-arrow barrage is aimed dead-center at the foreheads of the most annoying people in our inbox: The PR professionals who hawk startups. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by raincoaster: I just have to support this on general principles, especially since ghostblogging is very, very lucrative. more » | Other threads
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Tech Tyrants
The 10 most terrible tyrants of tech
Here's to the screaming ones. The chair-throwers. The death-threat makers. The imperious gazers. The ones who see things differently — and will stare you down until you do, too. They're not fond of rules, especially those outlined by the human-resources department on "treating your employees with respect." And they have no respect for conversational decibel levels. You can cower before them, hide from them, quote them behind their backs, or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they're so damn loud. They've worked at Google. Apple. Microsoft. AOL. They've ruled the industry — or they've failed, loudly. Below, we present you tech's 10 most tempestuous bosses — the ones who scream different. While some see them as sociopaths, Valleywag sees genius. More » -
Tech Tyrants
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington
Michael Arrington: Doesn't discriminate — holds everyone in contempt More »
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Comment by emnem: So Mikey's not very nice, is he? The video was so funny I had to watch it twice. Feldman's timing... more » | Other threads
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