Jason Kincaid Resigns From TC
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
His departure also speaks to a bigger trend re: AOL/HuffPo, which is their apparently flippant attitude toward talent retention. The steady stream of departures not only at TC, but also Engadget, shows an unwillingness to create an environment where top writers/journalists/media innovators can thrive. Though as an outsider, it's tough to tell if this is really the case.
This has happened (and continues to happen) at AOL UK, and I feel for Jason because when you read his post, you see how sad he is to be leaving TC.
There are some really lovely, funny, supportive, and wonderful people at AOL, and to leave them behind is really hard. At times it makes you angry, and you want to blame someone for it, and sometimes you want to write a massive rant about all the shit you saw at AOL and email Business Insider and watch corp comms go into overdrive. But in the end what does it give you?
It's better to say "onto better things" - just look at the Verge... I'm sure Topolsky is glad about leaving Engadget and doing this project.
My theory is that TC got so popular because its value was similar to that of a Daily TV Show where we'd tune in everyday to hear from our favorite characters (Arington the "villain" and Alexia the "girl we love to hate"). It wasn't just about the articles or the stories it was the editors and their take on it. We fell in love with watching them and their viewpoint, not necessarily staying up to date. Because there's lots of sites with up to date tech news, opinion pieces, and gadget reviews, many of which where much better than TCs content. But TC put a lot more emphasis on the editor and the personality they injected into their pieces. Even when they were wrong or biased we soaked it all up. Normal news shows have the editor stand behind their piece, almost invisible (which is the goal of journalism) but with TC the editors were proudly in front of their articles, you knew exactly who the article was from just by reading the first paragraph. It wasn't transparent at all. The focus wasn't the news, it was the editors themselves. The human element.
This furthers my theory that above all else, we are addicted to people. It's the human connection. Everywhere you look, social networks, online multiplayer, everything having to do with connecting people has grown immensely over the last few years. We emote by watching others emote, and we form opinions by listening to others' opinions. This is why Fox News has grown so much and why a lot of professional unbiased journalism has faded away. Because deep down inside we don't want "balanced" we don't want "both sides of the story" we want OUR side. When "Journalists" tell us what we want to hear we call them "fair and balanced" and are completely oblivious to their biases. And when their opinion didn't match ours we complain about the network or blog and call it biased, agenda driven, unfair, awful news, etc...
Psychologically, we don't want "mom and dad" telling us what to do and what to think, that's no fun. We want a fun loving neighbor that's just our age and does the same things we do and likes the same things we like. We also don't really want to be educated, doing so requires us to admit that we were wrong, or that we don't know something, and that we have to change our thinking. To seek education would mean that we admit that we are incorrect or inferior or stupid. We want our opinion to be validated. We want "us" to be validated.
We are looking for ourselves in everything (brands cater to us, news caters to us, video games caters to us, movies are whitewashed and stereotyped for us). Look very carefully at Tech Crunch, it had "us" all over it. Arrington the arrogant and dominating alpha male (what every man wants to be), Sarah Lacy the hip, globe trotting, educated girl we wish we knew, Alexia for the high school crowd, MG Siegler for the mac crowd, Jason Kincaid the awkward nice guy / best friend we never had, Paul Carr the opinionated smart guy, and so on and so on. TC wasn't news at all, it was a tech themed personal blog aggregate. Almost like a nonsexual dating site for techies. And it seduced us all, very, very well.
Of course, now that everyone knows it'll be very interesting to see what happens next, now that everyone knows the secret...
Other blogs have successfully churned their writing staff and managed to maintain popularity (Engadget, Gawker). But I think a lot of that unique voice that Techcrunch had is no longer there, replaced with a style that is more mainstream. That said, the audience for insider-style silicon valley startup stories is only so big and the broader tech market is both larger and more lucrative.
More than anything, I enjoyed TC Cribs the most since they were the closest thing to really see Valley startups at work - unless you worked for one of them. :)