3 ms·

"sales and marketing" != "having a popular blog" EDIT (for some reason reply doesn't seem to work): TC is a hugely popular site, of course, but my point is tha

by nir 17y ago

"sales and marketing" != "having a popular blog" EDIT (for some reason reply doesn't seem to work): TC is a hugely popular site, of course, but my point is that sales and marketing is a lot more than what any website can do. They can have huge impact on a website's traffic (though the long term effect is arguable) but getting readers to follow a link isn't the same as getting them to pay a few hundred $ for a product.

breck 17y ago
Since when is TechCrunch just a blog? They have multiple blogs that get millions of readers. They have conferences and meetups throughout the world that are covered by major media outlets. They run the most successful startup contest around, where companies like Mint, Dropbox, and Yammer publicly launched. It sounds like Fusion Garage and TechCrunch did a terrible job at setting clear expectations about the partnership from the beginning, but to call TechCrunch just another blog is not accurate.
- prakash 17y ago
  http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/05/53651.html?cid=17189379 http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/05/53651.html?cid=17189379
  - breck 17y ago
    Good point. But TechCrunch has become 1 or 2 orders of magnitude bigger since this post. Also, I think a large segment of the target market for this product is this exact market that is very familiar with TechCrunch.
  - skmurphy 17y ago
    The "53,651 readers in the Silicon Valley echo chamber" argument in 2006 had more force than "only 3,739,000 readers in 2009." TechCrunch now clearly has a larger reader base than early adopter in Silicon Valley.
  - Teulon 17y ago
    I was considering getting one of these when it was released and I live in Wausau, Wisconsin.
tptacek 17y ago
It does look like they did more than just lend the project the blog; for instance, TC sent people physically to Asia to do some unspecified thing. But that fits with a narrative of the original agreement being fuzzy, and TC getting more serious towards the end when they saw the project was actually going to come to fruition.
Keyframe 17y ago
People tend to forget, and especially so here, that there is another world outside of interwebs - with different approaches to marketing/sales, and those work on a few levels above web in terms of volume pushed.

by nir 17y ago

breck 17y ago

Since when is TechCrunch just a blog? They have multiple blogs that get millions of readers. They have conferences and meetups throughout the world that are covered by major media outlets. They run the most successful startup contest around, where companies like Mint, Dropbox, and Yammer publicly launched. It sounds like Fusion Garage and TechCrunch did a terrible job at setting clear expectations about the partnership from the beginning, but to call TechCrunch just another blog is not accurate.

prakash 17y ago
http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/05/53651.html?cid=17189379 http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/05/53651.html?cid=17189379
- breck 17y ago
  Good point. But TechCrunch has become 1 or 2 orders of magnitude bigger since this post. Also, I think a large segment of the target market for this product is this exact market that is very familiar with TechCrunch.
- skmurphy 17y ago
  The "53,651 readers in the Silicon Valley echo chamber" argument in 2006 had more force than "only 3,739,000 readers in 2009." TechCrunch now clearly has a larger reader base than early adopter in Silicon Valley.
- Teulon 17y ago
  I was considering getting one of these when it was released and I live in Wausau, Wisconsin.

tptacek 17y ago

It does look like they did more than just lend the project the blog; for instance, TC sent people physically to Asia to do some unspecified thing. But that fits with a narrative of the original agreement being fuzzy, and TC getting more serious towards the end when they saw the project was actually going to come to fruition.

Keyframe 17y ago

People tend to forget, and especially so here, that there is another world outside of interwebs - with different approaches to marketing/sales, and those work on a few levels above web in terms of volume pushed.