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I think there's more to the story. This disagreement had to start earlier, I doubt it could have gone from everything fine to mutual ultimatums in a single mont
by ovi256 17y ago
I think there's more to the story. This disagreement had to start earlier, I doubt it could have gone from everything fine to mutual ultimatums in a single month. Something must have given before.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- mrkurt 17y agoYeah, that post has the subtle stench of BS. I haven't followed the Crunchpad ordeal all that closely, but they've never been all that forthcoming about problems and this announcement smacks of manufactured drama.
- furyg3 17y agoHonestly, everything I've ever seen with regard to Arrington or TC has been surrounded in "drama" and hype, both things I'd rather simply avoid. I truly don't understand the appeal, but I'm curious... Are there any hackers out there who think that TC provides any form of intriguing technical commentary? Or that he's a legitimate "visionary/evangelist" in things dot-com? If the answer to both is "no", what's left? Why do we have so many TC stories?
- physcab 17y agoThe appeal of TC (for me atleast) is that they produce a lot of content. The subjective nature of the content is one aspect I won't address, but the simple fact is that they are very active reporters. Like it or not, it is often the first place I hear about up and coming startups.
- pbhjpbhj 17y agoI like the subjective nature - you don't have to beat around the bush to find what the editorial staff's (!) position is it's plain as your nose right there.
- zaidf 17y agoAre there any hackers out there who think that TC provides any form of intriguing technical commentary? You are making two assumptions here: 1. Hackers are only into technical commentary 2. TC promises technical commentary and under delivers I don't think either of them are true. For a lot of us, particularly those doing startups, an article on TC about our company can be worth many times more than frontpage NYT story. I say that from experience. Even if you dislike TC's content, dismissing its potential value to your business would be stupid.
- litewulf 17y agoWhat has been the value of being on TC for you? I've had a number of startups get their post on TC, which resulted in tons of clicks on our homepage, and basically nothing beyond that. These startups ranged from VC funded to boot strap, and I can't really say the "publicity" we received was useful in any way.
- shafqat 17y agoFWIW, we got funded because of our TC coverage. Our investor (a Silicon Valley VC) called us the day of the post. 2 months later, the money was in our accounts.
- zaidf 17y agoTop two things: 1. We got incredible SEO out of it. As a result of TC, we got on top of digg/reddit. Each of those gave us dozens of more linkbacks. This significantly helped us with our seo strategy that got us sustained 80-90,000/uniques a day within 3 months. 2. We got into ycombinator. I believe without getting onto TC, it would be very hard to get traction. And without traction, a site like ours would be a very tough sell(as much to ourselves as to investors) Before we launched, our 3 month plan was to get on TC. That we got on it a few days after launch put us way ahead.
- petercooper 17y agoYes, TechCrunch is great and has a substantial position in our vague industry. Arrington has almost single handedly resulted in a spotlight being cast onto us that simply didn't exist before. I'm not saying someone else couldn't have done it, and maybe perhaps better, but Arrington was the one to step forward to the plate and TC has done a lot more good for our industry than bad.
- jsz0 17y agoFrom the start the promise of building a large touchscreen tablet for $300 was simply impossible. Either they were naive or dishonest. The 12" LCD touch panel alone is likely $200-$300 in bulk or even more. How can you price a product at retail below the cost of an individual component? As the price crept up to $400, then $500 and probably more realistically $800-$1k I think Mr. Arrington needed an end game that didn't make him look dishonest or naive. An IP dispute solves that problem nicely. Of course he could be telling the truth but based on the pricing fib/naivety I'm skeptical.
- elai 17y agoI've seen large "touch panel" layer parts for various devices for well under $100 and 1080p 22" TN LCD screens with built in speakers for $100-$150, so a 12" touchscreen panel would likely be nowhere near $200.
- jsz0 17y agoIn what type of volume?
- nl 17y agoHere's a 15" panel at $97 for a single order: http://wholesale.alibaba.com/product-gs/261192316-15inch-SAW-touchscreen-water-proof-Metal-frame--wholesalers.html http://wholesale.alibaba.com/product-gs/261192316-15inch-SAW... Note that this a touch panel not the LCD, but they do work perfectly well
- krschultz 17y agoYou're comparing apples to oranges.
- DanBlake 17y agoIts called pre-installed software, search engines and default services. Its worth alot- Both in "revenue now" and recurring revenue.
- nl 17y ago
- cwan 17y agoApparently there is - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad-end/#comment-3125643 http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad-end/#comment-.... It would be interesting to know what "the other side" of the story is.
- genieyclo 17y agoTC has a large readership that Arrington might be using to his advantage in this situation as well.
- ivenkys 17y agoAbsolutely , there has to be more to the story. Where is the other side of the story ?
- jeromec 17y agoMaybe not much more, though. As I've warned even my own partners, it's sad, but people often change over money. The near readiness and impending launch probably got some people excited. Let this be a lesson, especially on an entrepreneurial board like this: agree on partnership terms and expectations up front, and also get it in writing.
- keeptrying 17y agoYup. I learnt all these things the hard way :(.
- chubbard 17y agoYep. I too think TC isn't the most truthful media outlet. TC has a lot of power as a media outlet, and there have been a couple of incidents where I think they are abusing that power. This is just another case of that happening. Justified or not you have separate your personal feelings from your coverage, and I don't think Mike can do that.
- jkincaid 17y agoMike left a comment when someone asked that same question in the post: "of course there is more to the story. but the point is we’d gotten past all the ugly sausage making that goes into any startup and had moved to within days of launching it. An email to us saying “the economics don’t work, we have to talk” would have been a reasonable request. But telling us that we aren’t important to the project, and stating that we don’t own the intellectual property, is just bizarre."
- ErrantX 17y agoTo me that says acres more than the entire original post...
- dbz 17y agoStill. I find the most upsetting part of the article "And then the entire project self destructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication." <- that quote. That quote shows his personal feelings about what happened and it's very sad that such an amazing project could be destroyed so easily. I don't share any of the hate the author probably does; however, I do feel extremely sad about the entire ordeal. (ps: I, with a friend of mine, had already started programming to make some applications we thought would be perfect for it.)
- SamAtt 17y agoI think there's always more to such stories but rarely do the other parties know it. In my experience the biggest contributor to products dying is passive aggressiveness. If you're in a partnership where you don't feel you can air your grievances they'll just build up inside until you hit the last straw and everything explodes. I suspect that's what happened here. On the upside, thanks to my Boss foolishly putting enough faith in this project to bet on it's eventual existence (and write several blog posts he's probably embarrassed by now) I'm now $100 bucks richer.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- tc 17y agoShareholders can sometimes do crazy things. Arrington mentioned that the deal being contemplated involved a new entity buying Fusion Garage. I'm sure that would have required the approval of FG's shareholders, who don't currently seem to be strongly behind Chandra. If that's all actually the case, then perhaps the mistake was failing to recognize early enough that Chandra wasn't the final decision maker.
- jeromec 17y agoThat's a good point. But what gets me is that Arrington is a former lawyer. I would have thought he'd have proper papers written up from the start.
- KWD 17y agoWell he says in the article "We jointly own the CrunchPad product intellectual property, and we solely own the CrunchPad trademark." So I'm thinking he probably has this covered, though it may be the other company sees a way around this or does not care about legal implications. It may be the product gets knocked-off by some overseas company before ever being produced itself (look out for the the iCrunchpod).
- jeromec 17y agoNo, intellectual property and trademark legal protection happen automatically, without needing to do anything formal. It looks like he did little more than say "help build it, and we'll be partners".
- codexon 17y agoI believe you are thinking of copyright. Patents and trademarks need to be registered in the US.
- jeromec 17y agoFrom wikipedia: Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be established through actual use in the marketplace, or through registration of the mark with the trademarks office.
- jaxn 17y agoMaybe there is more to the story, but for the first time, I feel bad for Arrington.