Amateur Hour At Twitter- Blaine cook out?
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Downtime is obviously a serious issue, but implying that Cook is an amateur is as irresponsible as it is false. Are we supposed to believe that, while Twitter became a rock star application - literally the crack cocaine of conference attendees - Cook's primary role was help it go down from time to time?
TC is a powerful voice and really should not be engaging in the sorts of personal attacks that one would not even furl in a private setting.
Thankfully, many people have come to Cook's defense here and in the comments of Arlington's nuclear-powered trolling.
How does that work ? Some new twitter feature? ;)
Short of a tell-all from Twitter's side or Blaine, we're never going to know what caused the scalability problems. Arrington sarcastically mocks people who question his journalistic cred, but you'd have to be willfully ignorant not to see their point.
Given the valley, this probably hurts this guy's future employment prospects enough to be called slander/defamation. Mr. Arrington might want to watch how he uses the term "Amateur Hour".
Yet more evidence that TC should be Hacker News worthy.
Also, defamation is a set that includes libel and slander. Slander is something that is spoken (both start with an s, that helps me to remember it), so it doesn't apply here. I can dig up the legal standard if you are curious.
"Of course all that I say of the orator applies with even greater force to the orator's latter-day and more influential brother, the journalist. The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is used aright. He can do, and he often does, great good. He can do, and he often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all writers, for the very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their profession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit it. Offences against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand must be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by the purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations."
It is nearly impossible to take MA seriously after he uses terms like "Amatuer Hour at Twitter" for one of the most influential technical individuals in our community right now. Blaine Cook is a Man in the Arena, MA is a slandering journalist. MA should apologize and hold the same standards to himself that he asks of his readers. That is, if he was ever serious at SS08, something which I must now question.
While I agree that Twitter should theoretically have all their scaling problems solved by now, slamming Blaine Cook to that extent seems a bit gratuitous. Cook and his team were among the first to tackle the problem of scaling a Rails application to handle such massive traffic spikes. I don't know that it's fair to discount the level to which their team has solved its architectural problems.
Shameless hit job.
If you're going to single out one of only ten staff at least make it the CEO. Arrington played the man, not the ball, and did himself a great disservice in doing so.
Vale TechCrunch.
Does that even make sense? Man, people are drinking some serious Haterade today.
Maybe he could start with his headlines and articles?
I remember thinking that was weird. He spent several minutes asking the audience not to troll his site. Apart from being off-topic and self-involved, it seems unlikely that there would be very many TC trolls in that audience .