6 ms·

Death To The Embargo

57 points by ciscoriordan 18y ago

polvi 18y ago
For me, this is another reason why I feel like TC is dying. Posts seem to be getting more and more negative (lay-offs, this, etc), less about start-ups, and simply turning into a personal rant platform. Not sure if this is the reason, but something is causing traffic to slip over the past few months. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com/?metric=uv http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com/?metric=uv Anyway, if I were to launch something, I would not prefer to have my product story nestled between a piece about Yahoo layoffs, and a rant about PR (sorry AllFacebook, in this case).
- andr 18y ago
  I wouldn't say TC is dying. It's blogs like it that are replacing dying newspapers.
  - polvi 18y ago
    True, newspapers are having a hard time. However, I would still rather give my "exclusive" to the new york times. I guess I'm just trying to say that TC is doing something wrong, and hypothesizing it is articles like this. If I was TC and saw this graph, I would be worried! http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mashable.com+techcrunch.com/?metric=uv http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mashable.com+techcrunch.com...
- EastSmith 18y ago
  This is blog trend, not TC thing. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com+readwriteweb.com+gigaom.com/?metric=uv http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com+readwriteweb...
  - andr 18y ago
    Startups are just getting less interesting. Blogs in general would not be down, as they are a cheaper form of entertainment, which should be on the rise in a bad economy.
    - vaksel 18y ago
      everything interesting has been done to death. Now the only innovation(and I don't mean ____ + ____ mashup) will come from companies with a ton of money to spend on research.
      - harpastum 18y ago
        pretty much a spin on "Everything that can be invented has been invented." I don't believe it for a second. There will always be room for some kids in a garage to make a game-changing company.
        vaksel 18y ago
        everything that can be invented in the garage has been invented, now its getting to the point where any real technology needs a ton of R&D just to move forward
  - jwesley 18y ago
    All the big tech blogs now suck. Except for Uncov.com, which rocks, and they aren't big. Actually I like Valleywag too, just because they're the only ones not circle jerking with the others.
andr 18y ago
I've been annoyed by TC lately, but this step is something I applaud. Cutting out bullshit is always good in my book. I remember CNet doing a story an year ago, complaining how they were screwed by blogs that didn't honor embargoes. Big news outlets break those, too (ABC did, for example). And nobody really wins from an embargo (except PR companies), so I don't see the hurt.
- tlrobinson 18y ago
  At first glance it seems like an good thing, but as Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb) points out in the comments, TC says they will still honor embargoes if they get the exclusive. This gives companies the incentive to give TC an exclusive.
  - smhinsey 18y ago
    that's a pretty interesting insight that i think casts this activity in a different light than it was presented. good find.
  - alex_c 18y ago
    Exactly. I also remember reading allegations (on news.yc, I think?) that TC has refused to run stories because they weren't contacted before their competitors. The motive seems to be to give TC every possible advantage. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I don't know if there's anything worth applauding. Edit: just had a thought. If TC is going to (openly) start lying about respecting embargoes, what's to stop sources from lying about giving TC exclusivity?
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
      - alaskamiller 18y ago
        I actually find it be laziness. There different calibers of PR firms that I spoke with that say they ignore TC altogether because of the horrible type of traffic they have -- as in, mostly international, mostly incompatible with their client's need, mostly RSS readers, and mostly non-convertible. They rather go on the hunt of finding the right writers in the right fields/markets to get them to prep for a story. If your PR firm's first, second, or even third, suggestion for you is to pitch to the biggest tech blog: fire them.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
shafqat 18y ago
Startups should not be using PR firms anyway. Talk to them normally, build a relationship, see them in conferences, act human. That works, really. We haven't spent a cent on PR, and have done just fine and got all the coverage we could have asked for. I think its such a shame when the founders are evangelizing and spreading the word. That's where all the passion is, and it comes through. When it comes filtered through PR, you lose that excitement and buzz.
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  I think that's kind of a naive outlook. Bigger startups -- moronic sounding, yes -- can utilize PR firms to for effectiveness and efficiency. It's basically outsourcing whoever guy you put on "building relationships" and "encouraging press" to a professional firm instead of getting someone to bumble around with it.
  - ryanwaggoner 18y ago
    Not everything can be effectively outsourced.
alaskamiller 18y ago
All these tech "blogs" -- TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOm, Mashable -- operate with real budget and hire real people who rely on real paychecks to go through the weeks. When you're playing with real money, it's not time or place to fuck around. When I was working at a big blog, the major takeaway I got was that everyone will be engaging in an inevitable attrition war. And in that war, many will pull some crazy shit to get to the top. The sites themselves need to continuously generate pageviews day after day. They need to posture and project that they're more and more influential. The biggest offender, consistently, has been TechCrunch. They publish stuff that has explicit no publish requests, they break embargoes that hinders around real businesses' launch times, and they censure over petty beef with another tech blog. Oh, don't forget the fact that TechCrunch is no longer about startups -- it's the new CNet, without the class and without the journalistic integrity.
- neilc 18y ago
  You think CNet has "class" and "journalistic integrity"? Wow.
  - alaskamiller 18y ago
    For an organization of over 2000 people. Yes.
    - neilc 18y ago
      NYT, WaPo, and even CNN have considerably more class and integrity than CNet, IMHO -- and outside the media world, there are many organizations of 2000+ people I have more respect for.
  - whatusername 18y ago
    compared to TC? Yes.
- staunch 18y ago
  That big blog you worked for was Valleywag...and you're complaining that TC lacks integrity.
tlrobinson 18y ago
One "loophole", which only applies to sites that haven't launched, is to tell the writers when the site goes live. Chances are they won't run a story before the site is live. It effectively creates an embargo that can't be broken.
Tichy 18y ago
TC, our heroes - oh wait, they just want to be the first ones to break a story. For a second I thought they are doing it for the readers...
samwise 18y ago
I personally like all the writers at TC having worked with most of them in the past. They never broke an embargo and we're quick to response to any requests i had. The same can't be said for #%@&*& (name redacted to protect the guilty). You just have to be clever and give each blog a different angle to cover. You also have to approach different blogs every now and then rather hitting up the same source each time.
dmix 18y ago
Theres a thousand other things fighting for my attention online. If Techcrunch can't keep it then I'll go elsewhere, its simple as that. Will this change things? Probably not. I don't think the average readers care about exclusives or getting news the minute it happens. Techcrunch, recently, has simply not been worth more then skimming headlines for something that stands out. (1 in 10?)
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  You should create a single serving site at howmanystoriesstandoutontechcrunch and just post the number each day. They'd link to you for sure. Heck. Maybe there's a spot for a tech news site that just posts a single link each day to the one story worth reading. No archives. Just one story each day, Drudge-style.
trezor 18y ago
I don't really see why people care that much about techcrunch. Granted I'm just a regular hacker, not doing startup, not having any plans to do so, and generally care very little about startup news. I just want interesting technews. Give me links to some new awesome tech, with demos or videos showcasing why I should be awed. Give me links to new awesome tech which makes my life simpler. Give me links to fancy programming tricks which while technically awesome or impressive, would never survive a code-review. Give me stuff that feeds the hacker in me. In that respect techcrunch has generally been of very little interest to me, and lately I haven't even bothered reading stories from techcrunch at all. Is the focus on techcrunch around here (because I see noone else on the web caring) because it has historically been PR friendly to startups?

57 points by ciscoriordan 18y ago

polvi 18y ago

For me, this is another reason why I feel like TC is dying. Posts seem to be getting more and more negative (lay-offs, this, etc), less about start-ups, and simply turning into a personal rant platform. Not sure if this is the reason, but something is causing traffic to slip over the past few months. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com/?metric=uv http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com/?metric=uv Anyway, if I were to launch something, I would not prefer to have my product story nestled between a piece about Yahoo layoffs, and a rant about PR (sorry AllFacebook, in this case).

andr 18y ago
I wouldn't say TC is dying. It's blogs like it that are replacing dying newspapers.
- polvi 18y ago
  True, newspapers are having a hard time. However, I would still rather give my "exclusive" to the new york times. I guess I'm just trying to say that TC is doing something wrong, and hypothesizing it is articles like this. If I was TC and saw this graph, I would be worried! http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mashable.com+techcrunch.com/?metric=uv http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mashable.com+techcrunch.com...
EastSmith 18y ago
This is blog trend, not TC thing. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com+readwriteweb.com+gigaom.com/?metric=uv http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techcrunch.com+readwriteweb...
- andr 18y ago
  Startups are just getting less interesting. Blogs in general would not be down, as they are a cheaper form of entertainment, which should be on the rise in a bad economy.
  - vaksel 18y ago
    everything interesting has been done to death. Now the only innovation(and I don't mean ____ + ____ mashup) will come from companies with a ton of money to spend on research.
    - harpastum 18y ago
      pretty much a spin on "Everything that can be invented has been invented." I don't believe it for a second. There will always be room for some kids in a garage to make a game-changing company.
      - vaksel 18y ago
        everything that can be invented in the garage has been invented, now its getting to the point where any real technology needs a ton of R&D just to move forward
- jwesley 18y ago
  All the big tech blogs now suck. Except for Uncov.com, which rocks, and they aren't big. Actually I like Valleywag too, just because they're the only ones not circle jerking with the others.

andr 18y ago

I've been annoyed by TC lately, but this step is something I applaud. Cutting out bullshit is always good in my book. I remember CNet doing a story an year ago, complaining how they were screwed by blogs that didn't honor embargoes. Big news outlets break those, too (ABC did, for example). And nobody really wins from an embargo (except PR companies), so I don't see the hurt.

tlrobinson 18y ago
At first glance it seems like an good thing, but as Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb) points out in the comments, TC says they will still honor embargoes if they get the exclusive. This gives companies the incentive to give TC an exclusive.
- smhinsey 18y ago
  that's a pretty interesting insight that i think casts this activity in a different light than it was presented. good find.
- alex_c 18y ago
  Exactly. I also remember reading allegations (on news.yc, I think?) that TC has refused to run stories because they weren't contacted before their competitors. The motive seems to be to give TC every possible advantage. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I don't know if there's anything worth applauding. Edit: just had a thought. If TC is going to (openly) start lying about respecting embargoes, what's to stop sources from lying about giving TC exclusivity?
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
    - alaskamiller 18y ago
      I actually find it be laziness. There different calibers of PR firms that I spoke with that say they ignore TC altogether because of the horrible type of traffic they have -- as in, mostly international, mostly incompatible with their client's need, mostly RSS readers, and mostly non-convertible. They rather go on the hunt of finding the right writers in the right fields/markets to get them to prep for a story. If your PR firm's first, second, or even third, suggestion for you is to pitch to the biggest tech blog: fire them.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

shafqat 18y ago

Startups should not be using PR firms anyway. Talk to them normally, build a relationship, see them in conferences, act human. That works, really. We haven't spent a cent on PR, and have done just fine and got all the coverage we could have asked for. I think its such a shame when the founders are evangelizing and spreading the word. That's where all the passion is, and it comes through. When it comes filtered through PR, you lose that excitement and buzz.

alaskamiller 18y ago
I think that's kind of a naive outlook. Bigger startups -- moronic sounding, yes -- can utilize PR firms to for effectiveness and efficiency. It's basically outsourcing whoever guy you put on "building relationships" and "encouraging press" to a professional firm instead of getting someone to bumble around with it.
- ryanwaggoner 18y ago
  Not everything can be effectively outsourced.

alaskamiller 18y ago

All these tech "blogs" -- TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOm, Mashable -- operate with real budget and hire real people who rely on real paychecks to go through the weeks. When you're playing with real money, it's not time or place to fuck around. When I was working at a big blog, the major takeaway I got was that everyone will be engaging in an inevitable attrition war. And in that war, many will pull some crazy shit to get to the top. The sites themselves need to continuously generate pageviews day after day. They need to posture and project that they're more and more influential. The biggest offender, consistently, has been TechCrunch. They publish stuff that has explicit no publish requests, they break embargoes that hinders around real businesses' launch times, and they censure over petty beef with another tech blog. Oh, don't forget the fact that TechCrunch is no longer about startups -- it's the new CNet, without the class and without the journalistic integrity.

neilc 18y ago
You think CNet has "class" and "journalistic integrity"? Wow.
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  For an organization of over 2000 people. Yes.
  - neilc 18y ago
    NYT, WaPo, and even CNN have considerably more class and integrity than CNet, IMHO -- and outside the media world, there are many organizations of 2000+ people I have more respect for.
- whatusername 18y ago
  compared to TC? Yes.
staunch 18y ago
That big blog you worked for was Valleywag...and you're complaining that TC lacks integrity.

tlrobinson 18y ago

One "loophole", which only applies to sites that haven't launched, is to tell the writers when the site goes live. Chances are they won't run a story before the site is live. It effectively creates an embargo that can't be broken.

Tichy 18y ago

TC, our heroes - oh wait, they just want to be the first ones to break a story. For a second I thought they are doing it for the readers...

samwise 18y ago

I personally like all the writers at TC having worked with most of them in the past. They never broke an embargo and we're quick to response to any requests i had. The same can't be said for #%@&*& (name redacted to protect the guilty). You just have to be clever and give each blog a different angle to cover. You also have to approach different blogs every now and then rather hitting up the same source each time.

dmix 18y ago

Theres a thousand other things fighting for my attention online. If Techcrunch can't keep it then I'll go elsewhere, its simple as that. Will this change things? Probably not. I don't think the average readers care about exclusives or getting news the minute it happens. Techcrunch, recently, has simply not been worth more then skimming headlines for something that stands out. (1 in 10?)

brandnewlow 18y ago
You should create a single serving site at howmanystoriesstandoutontechcrunch and just post the number each day. They'd link to you for sure. Heck. Maybe there's a spot for a tech news site that just posts a single link each day to the one story worth reading. No archives. Just one story each day, Drudge-style.

trezor 18y ago

I don't really see why people care that much about techcrunch. Granted I'm just a regular hacker, not doing startup, not having any plans to do so, and generally care very little about startup news. I just want interesting technews. Give me links to some new awesome tech, with demos or videos showcasing why I should be awed. Give me links to new awesome tech which makes my life simpler. Give me links to fancy programming tricks which while technically awesome or impressive, would never survive a code-review. Give me stuff that feeds the hacker in me. In that respect techcrunch has generally been of very little interest to me, and lately I haven't even bothered reading stories from techcrunch at all. Is the focus on techcrunch around here (because I see noone else on the web caring) because it has historically been PR friendly to startups?