> they left AOL after AOL told them they were violating the most basic of journalism ethics rules by investing the companies they were writing about. This isn'

> they left AOL after AOL told them they were violating the most basic of journalism ethics rules by investing the companies they were writing about. This isn't true. Mike left AOL because Arriana was getting too hands on. There were a lot of little control decisions that lead to the decision to leave. He left and then setup Crunchfund, with an investment from AOL. He was supposed to continue as a contributor, just like many other contributors who are also investors or entrepreneurs but declined on that as well. MG remained as a contributor. As for the circle jerk being boring, I couldn't agree more (and I know the people involved, most of them well). What you have to keep in mind is that when something is made public, there is a motive for that. There is a reason why readers are being informed, and it usually isn't a good reason (for eg. claiming 'in view of full disclosure' and then telling half the story and leaving comments closed). But if you are going to call out the circle-jerk and how boring it is, first make your story accurate (not difficult, all the details are spread out across the various blogs) and second at least back-up the claim that people are starting to tire of it, for eg. the fact that only one other blog wrote about the latest bust-up, or that it only rated a mention on twitter amongst other bloggers who joked about it. The 'dirty laundry' posts used to be a lot more popular than they are now, and that means they are having little effect to their purpose of riling up readers. It would have taken a single paragraph to lay that point out, this just reads like somebody who jumped right into the circle jerk and is riding coat tails. The tone is one of speaking condescendingly on behalf of the rest of the world, but in attempting to do that he has stepped a bit too close to the action and got himself messy. And as has already been mentioned, we really really really don't give a shit - and that includes you.