The tech world deserves better than TechCrunch

"TechCrunch used its influence to gain a virtual chokehold on news about new startups from Y Combinator"

Hardly. The reason most of the startups announce on TechCrunch is simply that arranging a launch in multiple publications is a huge time sink. So we advise they pick one and give them an exclusive. Most pick TechCrunch.

>"My hat is off to TechCrunch for energetically filling the void in startup coverage that had opened up by the mid-2000s, after the collapse of dot-com-era biztech publications such as the Industry Standard, Business 2.0, and Red Herring"

And that's exactly what TechCrunch is/was: the next-in-line tech media player that filled the vacuum and rode the next bubble to the peak. Then fell apart.

The tech media and tech industry aren't really separate entities. They're part of the same machine.

The whole thing about TechCrunch being perceived as being so influential to the success of a startup is strange to me. TechCrunch doesn't make or break your startup. How you grow your business after the initial launch traffic dies down is what matters.

I wish Techcrunch would have spent more time investigating, following up and seeking out interesting start-up companies then they did posting just to create buzz and pageviews.

At least 25% of all posts on Techcrunch were 'in the know' pissing contests or insult articles, designed only to create social buzz and spread from only the 'gossip value'.

It concerns me how much influence TechCrunch has and how willing it is to use the influence to coerce start ups. Do sources like Mashable and Read Write Web do the same thing?

The tech world deserves to read a post on one page too.

I think there is a lot of value in having one go-to site for exclusive news about start ups and tech companies. TechCrunch's chokehold on tech news does not bother me. They are the master of breaking tech news and that makes it easy for me to find breaking tech news. Plus they have great bloggers who are actually good writers and story tellers. I disagree with Fred Wilson though that their value stems from their 'fuck you attitude'. Conversely, I think this attitude has proven bad for the site. Too much bickering, anger, pettiness, and one-upsmanship pervades the site these days. Maybe this passion and emotion is what propels their bloggers to break stories and get the story right, but why does it need to spillover into a bunch of personal sniping and blog posts which are incoherent or lacking in context?

"Techcrunch would do anything to get more pageviews! Click here to read the rest of this article"