Gawker: valleywag, techcest

Arrington engages the Valley's crazy uncles

Nick Douglas — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 10:00:00 EDT

The Three Stooges of Silicon Valley found a Shemp. After Michael Arrington spoke at Dave Winer's BloggerCon, the TechCrunch blogger got sucked into Winer's little club — Winer, Marc Canter, and Steve Gillmor.

We've explained the crazy uncles before: Canter's a wacky Macromedia burnout, Gillmor's an attention-starved ZDNet journo, and Winer's a blog feed innovator who's always boss of the playground. Arrington is the latest victim of their attention-getting argument club.

Gillmor wrote a staggeringly incoherent BloggerCon wrapup, practically begging Winer and Arrington to link to it. Arrington did, asking his readers if anyone could decipher Gillmor's prose. (They can't.)

Gillmor and Winer chimed in on Arrington's comments, making — oh hell, here's a diagram.

Every microcosm has a group like this. Don't commit Arrington's mistake — steer clear of these mutually abusive cliques.

Steve Gillmor: "Please Don't Link to That" [CrunchNotes]

Somewhere down the line, a kid gets born with a pig's tail

ndouglas — Thu, 04 May 2006 10:00:24 EDT

Mediabistro's FishBowlLA has the perfect recap of the last two weeks' dot-com frenzy (Lloyd Braun — pictured because I like picturing him — zigs, Steve Ballmer zags, and still they try to dance):

So for those who are confused by this, a recap: The guy who used to program ABC has been hired to take Yahoo! in the direction of YouTube, while Microsoft's MSN is trying to be more like ABC.

It's not quite as simple as Mediabistro says. The same MSN that wants to be ABC wants Microsoft to buy Yahoo (but not the part led by the exec from ABC) to fight Google, who's accusing Microsoft of doing to IE what Google did to Mozilla. Meanwhile, Microsoft delays Windows to become more like Apple, who's releasing ads touting how Apple plays well with Microsoft but how Apple is better than Microsoft.

Do not ask about AOL.

Hollywood: Microsoft goes where Yahoo! fears to tread [FishBowlLA]

Techcest: Why Brian Alvey owned JohnBattelle.com

ndouglas — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 18:42:05 EDT

~~This year, as every year, Brian Alvey of the Weblogs, Inc. Network renewed JohnBattelle.com.~~ UPDATE: Brian Alvey of Weblogs Inc. doesn't still own JohnBattelle.com, but because his WIN partner Jason Calacanis sold it along with the Silicon Alley Reporter, he's been listed as owning the domain ever since the first boom.

Back then, Battelle was at the tech news outlet Industry Standard, claiming that he'd take over Calacanis's competing Silicon Alley Reporter. Calacanis threatened to use JohnBattelle.com to cover conflicts of interest when Battelle wrote about his investors' companies.

The two are still rivals, with members of Battelle's blog ad network FM Publishing competing with Calacanis's blog network. But that's not all the bad blood between the two media mini-moguls. Here's a guide to just one cluster of the thick web of techcest:

Diagram by Dan Lurie
JohnBattelle.com registration [Whois]