Expectations: Follow up to "I'm building a better TechCrunch"
thestartupfoundry.com
thestartupfoundry.com
I give it a month. These hipster advertising networks never pay near enough that you can make, once you hit "success" with traffic you'll be funding out of your own pocket if you don't switch.
http://www.crunchnotes.com/2006/05/11/new-techcrunch-site-ad...
The rules were no animated GIF's, no promotions and just a company logo. If you look back at archive.org you will see that it was nice and clean:
http://www.crunchnotes.com/2006/05/12/new-techcrunch-site-la...
(the banners came in 3-4 months later)
They sold out within an hour. The next month, we increased the price to 10k and they sold out again, with some companies buying 3 months worth. Then we increased the price, and again they sold out.
We went from making 1.5-3k a month on AdSense to 40k+ a month and the site was cleaner.
Federated Media came along and promised more revenue. I can't remember the details at the time, but we agreed. Before too long we were getting requests for very large ad spends but they had specific requirements - square ad spots, flash, rollover, the works.
Once the site traffic reached the levels where the ad buyers were interested in dealing with us direct, the entire game changed. We now had 2-3 middle-men between us and the advertiser, and we had to implement the old school ad system (although we did get some concessions such as no autoplay or rollovers).
Steadily over the next few years the site went from nice and clean to top banner, square banner, skyscraper, 12 square units, etc. You all know what it looks like now (well I dont, thanks to adblock).
Those squares are everywhere now (you can blame me for that - they even became a standard IAB unit). They were quickly picked up by all the other blogs but the meaning has changed from what they were supposed to be (ie. just company logo's and a clean way to do ads instead of the traditional), but everybody, including TC, ended up hitting traffic numbers where the old banners were thrown up as well - causing all the sites to look terrible with ads (if your competitors have the banners, you have to have them as well, so you can keep up with revenue, hiring people, etc.)
Regardless, the site looks great and I am excited to see what comes from it.
not saying you're wrong--well, actually, i am saying you're wrong.
i'm not saying there aren't valid reasons to change his screen name now or previously. i'm saying there are also valid reasons to keep it.
and I still think it's funny.
</JOKE>
No point being this specific at such an early phase.
They write about new startups and important events in the startup world. That's all. No other bullshit. I would also love some other guest posts that discuss important matters in the startup industry.
I get that was the stated goal here, but that footer is confusing without the context of the Hacker News announcement.
It's already removed on the main site.
What theme are you using? Do you plan on having an About page?
It's amazing how much crap those guys produce and how little they do stir up interesting startups. Arrington's "no embargo" policy - supposedly principled - is at odds with their extortionate methods of promising coverage in exchange for perks for their readers and exclusives.
I don't see how it's at about principles at all or at odds with giving stuff to readers--it's always been about embargoes getting broken, and nothing else, as far as I know.
I don't think it's really that surprising. Let's be honest - is startup news or the "pop journalism" that you (rightfully) deride going to draw a larger audience? TechCrunch is in the business of drawing in as many readers as possible, and it does a fantastic job in that respect. TSF certainly fills a niche that we are very interested in, but it's a relatively small one when you look at the blogosphere ecosystem as a whole.