An Open Letter to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington
Michael-
I really appreciate what you’ve done for Web 2.0 and the larger tech community. In many ways, you have given Web 2.0 a face it previously didn’t have. TechCrunch is one of my ‘must read’ blogs and I’m always excited to check out the new Web 2.0 companies and products you review and profile. It’s obvious you put a lot of time and effort into what you do.
That being said, I was very disappointed with your coverage of Blogniscient on TechCrunch yesterday. I feel a friend and client was not given a fair shake on your blog, due to a rather obvious preference for what you perceive as a competing service - Memeorandum.
Blogniscient was given a sub-par review (e.g., a reader of yours pointed out one mistake but no update was made - fair enough, you just posted this comment) and no profile of its own. Before yesterday, you admitted via a comment on my blog that you choose not to write about Blogniscient because it was “so ugly it makes memeorandum look good.”
Is Web 2.0 simply about looks though? Is it not about the technology? I think we can all agree that del.icio.us is another Web 2.0 service that is quite ugly. Still, its received rave reviews from you.
I think there is quite a conflict of interest when it comes to your thoughts on Memeorandum and Blogniscient. After all, Gabe appears to be a pretty good friend of yours (seen pictured with you here and here) and has even stayed out at your house (I’m not sure if he is still there but his blog seems to show Atherton as his new city of residence).
In most cases where there are multiple companies or products in the same space (take AJAX calendars for example), each still are given an objective and thoughtful review. Blogniscient, however, has never been given an analysis on its own terms. Even the title of your post was called Blogniscient v. Memeorandum.
Your follow-up comment showing the stats of Memeorandum against Blogniscient also seems rather unfair, considering Memeorandum has received an overwhelming amount of coverage on blogs like yours and Scoblelizer (although Robert actually has covered Blogniscient prior to yesterday). Case and point, as I wrote this post, Robert has a new post up called How to get on Memeorandum.
You might say that I also have a conflict of interest due to the nature of my relationship with Blogniscient. I’ve gone to bat for them in the past though, before ever doing any work with them or having any conversations of substance with Ben. I gave Blogniscient coverage because I valued the technology and overlooked a terrible interface. After sitting down to learn about Ben’s vision, I found it fascinating - I knew we could do something about the design issues.
As I commented on your blog some time back, I value it most as an objective resource, a fact based encyclopedia for Web 2.0 products and services. I understand that occasionally there will be some editorializing (as in the case of Inform.com) but I hope to see that reserved for your new companion blog going forward - and I plan on reading that one as often as TechCrunch. If you truly believe in letting the web decide, then I think TechCrunch can serve us best as an unbiased source for tracking Web 2.0. I know that’s a tough challenge but you seem more than capable for being up to the the task.
I hope you find these thoughts constructive and not overtly critical or presuming.
Best,
Ken Yarmosh
TECHNOSIGHT
Technology Consultant
P.S. - Sorry to present these thoughts in this fashion but previous emails have gone unanswered.
update: Mike didn’t take kindly to this letter. He believes I never revealed my role as a paid consultant when writing about Blogniscient (which I did when Blogniscient became my client just under two weeks ago via my interview post). You can read my comment on his blog (at which I also reveal that I was paid $100 caffeine money for this job). Scoble also chimed in.
October 30, 2005 at 9:35 pm
Ken,
A few thoughts.
1. I apologize if I haven’t answered your emails. I’m a one man shop and I get hundreds of emails a day. I cannot read all of them. It’s something that I beat myself up over constantly because I feel that if someone takes the time to email me, I should take the time to read it and write back. I may hire someone to help out at TechCrunch, but given that it is a zero revenue site I don’t know when that will happen.
2. TechCrunch is not an objective site. It’s all about my opinions. I’ve never claimed otherwise.
3. I apologize if I did not give your client a stand alone review. To be fair, I don’t think it deserves a stand alone review and is interesting, at this time, only as part of the broader discussion of how memeorandum is changing the web. I wrote my opinion of the service, and gave what I believe is a quite favorable review. In my opinion, and I repeat, in my opinion, memeorandum is a far superior service.
4. I have an open house here in Atherton and I invite many people to stay. During the web 2.0 conference people were on the floors, on the couches, in the bedrooms. One of those people is a VC with a $30m net worth. I didn’t include him in my top VCs post. He’s pissed. He’ll get over it.
Gabe has stayed here, and he has grown to be a friend. This has developed after I’ve gotten to know memeorandum, and quite frankly one of the reasons I like hanging out with him is that he’s so damn smart. There is no nepotism in my posts on memeorandum.
I have no financial or other interest in memeorandum, nor have I been paid to write anything about memeorandum or any other company.
5. I think you should look in the mirror. You are a paid consultant to blogniscient and this wasn’t disclosed in your early posts, or in the comments you blanketed the blogospere with.
I am launching a company called edgeio in the near future. I’ve posted, once, on edgeio, and I fully disclosed that I am a founder. I also said I won’t be posting on it much, if at all, in the future.
6. If people like Robert Scoble and Dave Winer think Memeorandum is great, perhaps it is simply because it is.
7. I think you owe me an apology for this open letter, regarding your claims of a conflict of interest.
October 31, 2005 at 2:44 pm
I just heard about Blogniscient today, ironically via Memeorandum, which I just learned about last week. Since Daypop and Blogdex both stopped working about a week ago, I’ve felt completely cut off from the blogosphere and I’m looking for a new “top linked stuff” aggregator.
Memeorandum has been OK, but it only covers tech and politics and it separates them into two pages. I like what I see of Blogniscient so far: it covers a variety of topics on one page. Though I don’t like the way they’re separated by topic; it would be nice if there were an option to just see all the links mixed together regardless of subject so I know what’s really hot.
If my two favorite aggregators are indeed gone forever, Blogniscient might be an OK substitute.
October 31, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Ken,
I’ve been following this thread and I attempted to try Blogniscient myself.
Blogniscient has some *serious* usability issues making it less useful than Memeorandum. The most important of these is the inability to find RSS feeds easily (simply unacceptable for a service like Blogniscient).
You can find the rest of my comments on Blogniscient on my blog (http://eddorre.com/posts/351.aspx).
November 1, 2005 at 9:59 am
Carlos…are you referring to the lack of RSS auto-discovery? There is one RSS feed for each category on the “Top Blog Articles” page (located in the right-hand sidebar). Other views (”Top Blogs” and “Freshest Stuff”) were not as suitable for feeds. What other useability issues did you see? I’d encourage you to contact Blogniscient and give them feedback
feedback [at] blogniscient [dot] com
November 2, 2005 at 12:22 pm
I think the main problem here is people aren’t seeing that you JUST took the paid position. All your earlier comments were completely unbiased. Unfortunatly, some people think paid consultants are whores who will say anything for a buck…
If you were going to sell yourself, I doubt it would be for $100.