TechCrunch Now Number Two Tech Blog As Mashable Surges
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
I like TechCrunch better, I think. But TC has an acerbic vibe that might put people off. If only we could tell who had the higher value readers.
seems to me that mashable is more consumer/enthusiast oriented, while TC caters to people in the industry. or as the SAT would put it, TC:Mashable -> HN:Digg
It makes sense that they eventually got a larger audience than TC, since there are more enthusiasts than pros.
1) Posts from one author who constantly insulted readers by calling them idiots if they didn't side with him regarding his politics (in any case, the posts were usually only tangentially related to technology).
2) Posting lists like "The top 10 ways to do XXXXXX online," often forgetting the most important and useful sites for the purpose. They never go back and update their lists based on user feedback, even if hundreds of people point out obvious mistakes or omissions.
Of course they are welcome to choose whom to put on their lists, but it seems that they just pick 10 rather carelessly to get the post out as soon as possible.
TC may have an acerbic vibe, but they seem to direct it at companies and other sites, not their readers.
Mashable: 225,000
Techcrunch: 2,150,000
But then again for twitter, Mashable is leading techcrunch by about 100K. So there is probably some shenanigans going on
It seems 55% of Mashable traffic is coming in from search engines. If you look at their homepage, they are obviously heavily optimized for keywords like 'youtube', 'myspace' etc. (I got my stat from compete pro, cant link)
As a tech/valley person, I keep up with TC a few times a day but Mashable doesn't interest me at all. I am sure I am not alone.
I wonder how much less it costs to advertise on Mashable because the traffic is so much less valuable than Techcrunch's traffic.
I'd say you take those out and TC would be ahead.