The Hackathon never sleeps, and neither do the hackers. Just like the Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon, and the San Francisco Hackathon before it, this year’s bunch of coders are up and at ‘em, ready to disrupt… well, anything.
Surveying the San Francisco Design Center, you’ll find a lot of empty red bull cans, beer bottles, and bags of chips. It’s not necessarily the most nutritional sustenance, but tonight, it’s the lifeblood of our beloved hackers. → Read More
Once upon a time, in a land 3,000 miles away, Alexia wrote a post titled Arianna Wants To Put A Nap Room In TechCrunch HQ. Lol. It was in reference to NapQuest, a relatively awesome initiative at Aol/Huffington Post that includes a small room with a massage chair, a shelf full of books, complete with a full-fledged dentist-style reclining chair and a sleep sound machine.
Along with some other awesome perks of working in this office, NapQuest is only one of the reasons why I personally feel so blessed to work at Aol while still having the benefit of editorial independence, something we talk a lot about at TechCrunch.
So I have decided to practice my editorial independence by breaking the biggest story of the year: Alexia, who has publicly stated that tech bloggers don’t need sleep (and that naps are a joke), was just caught occupying one of Aol’s 5th floor NapQuest pods.
True story. → Read More
Warning: There’s no real tech news reason I’m writing this, other than the fact that it’s sort of ridiculous that humans are this way and maybe that’s an opportunity for some startup to tap into.
I arrived at the Aol 770 Broadway offices on Thursday and was met with the above glass situation at the TechCrunch NYC cubicle headquarters. After several moves, the TechCrunch team is on the six floor, in an area that I’ve been lost several times trying to find, where couldn’t see my co-worker Peter Ha because of this damn frosted glass. → Read More
Independent reporter Guy Adams’ Twitter account was restored today. It was suspended after Adams tweeted NBC President of the Olympics Gary Zenkel’s email address.
Adams tweeted in two parts, “Twitter emails to tell me: “we have just received an update from the complainant retracting their original request…Therefore your account has been unsuspended.” No further explanation given, or apology offered.” → Read More
Michael Morganella, a defender on the Swiss Olympic soccer squad, has been kicked off the team for an offensive tweet about South Koreans, hours after losing to the country’s team. Five days ago, Voula Papachristou, Greece’s triple-jump champion, was kicked off her team for an offensive tweet about West Nile virus.
Morganella’s Twitter account, @morgastoss, has been deleted, but Swiss newspaper Le Matin grabbed a shot of the tweet. → Read More
Twitter shut down Independent reporter Guy Adams after he tweeted a top NBC executive’s email address. Adams has been a staunch critic of NBC’s Olympics coverage, tweeting up a storm about NBC’s factual inaccuracies and other broadcast shortcomings.
Adams tweeted the corporate email address of Gary Zenkel, President of the NBC Olympics. → Read More
Location-based note-sharing app Pinwheel has changed its name to Findery, after the U.S. District Court of New York granted Pinweel, a photo-sharing app, a preliminary injunction over the similar names.
In February, Caterina Fake (yep, last name Fake involved in a naming-rights lawsuit…I can’t make this stuff up) launched Pinwheel. The older Pinweel demanded that Pinwheel change its name, and eventually they wound up in court. → Read More
Voula Papachristou, Greece’s triple-jump champion, was barred from competing in the London Olympic Games by the Hellenic Olympic Committee after an offensive tweet on Monday.
She tweeted, “with so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitos will be eating food from their own home.” → Read More
On Wednesday, I reported that GoDaddy acquired cloud-based financial management application company Outright, with all 24 employees joining GoDaddy. Now, web and mobile app developer LessEverthing tells me they turned down an offer from GoDaddy in 2009. → Read More
We interrupt our normal programming to bring you a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the daily lives of your friendly neighbourhood tech writer. Now, over the years TechCrunch has grown up a little more, but even to this day we enjoy being a little punchy from time to time. Why else do you think we have a “Drama” category? But day-to-day we try to act professionally, even when things don’t go to plan, as they often do. One of those “things” can sometimes be a problem with the ever-present “embargo” on a story.
Now, I don’t need to remind long-time regular readers that we’ve had our problems with them in the past. Indeed, “Death to the embargo” tends to sum up our general sentiment on the matter.
But it’s 2012. And we like to review these things on a case-by case basis. One of those cases is [sometimes, not all mind] when a small startup is trying to make its way in the world. And the other day I was faced with such a decision. A chap called Uriah Av-Ron of Oasis-pr.com approached me with an embargo for a story. → Read More
The tech news cycle is a desperate bitch, as we’ve brought up before; A brief rundown of yesterday’s bitchmeme sparked by a mere tweet from my colleague MG Siegler once again proves how absurd it is.
“I used to love to plant one really weird bit of random information (sometimes even false) into stories to catch the rewrites,” MG wrote in response to developer Marco Arment’s concise analysis of the insatiable tech news beast. → Read More
You may have noticed some new bylines popping up these past couple of days. You’re not hallucinating! We’ve quietly made several new additions to the TechCrunch roster this summer and hiring continues to be our first priority across all departments.
In addition to specialist writers like Alex Williams and Greg Ferenstein, we’ve added a couple of interns and a rockstar product manager to our team. We’re also busy with other parts of the company, adding more people to our events team, and working on important but unglamorous projects like getting the site to load faster (hallelujah).
Here’s the latest on the newest folks we’ve got working here, and why you might want to talk to each of them. → Read More
On the 25th of June, our dearest Alexia Tsotsis had an incredibly rough day.
First, her car was looted by very bad people in San Francisco, who stole her laptop and a pair of excellent Bose headphones that were near and dear to her heart. And as if that wasn’t enough, her car then got smashed by someone running a red light, totaling her vehicle and leaving her in quite a bit of pain.
When fellow TechCrunch sharks heard the news, we knew we had to do something to help out one of our fearless leaders, and so our very own Ryan Lawler stepped up to the plate with a suggestion to buy some new headphones for Alexia. “Knowing that we can’t replace the sentimental value, I was thinking we could maybe (at least) help replace the item that was taken.”
After a little back and forth, the team settled on an app to help us accomplish the task at hand (we at TC need an app for everything), and that’s where CrowdTilt enters the mix. → Read More
Pro tip: Don’t let the following happen to your PR pitch/intern.
So I know this is a particularly egregious case of “pot calling the kettle black” (I personally am a Black Belt in typos) but, instead of being psyched up to “Party Our Apps Off!”at Google i/o next week, our team has been discussing the simple grammar mistake in the subject line of the below email for at least 30 minutes this morning.
I thought I would share the thread with you guys, if anything to remind you again that there’s a crucial difference between “your” and “you’re” (“its” and “it’s” are also tricky). → Read More
A panel run by TechCrunch’s Josh Constine with with Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL and Melissa Brenner of the NBA was billed as being about how social advertising is working for those content brands. In the end, we heard a lot more about the future path of AOL and TechCrunch perhaps. But let’s review.
Armstrong admitted that AOL was originally built as a portal and on a subscription model but that it needed to head in a content direction.
He said the overall premise is that “content is going to be what differentiates platforms” from search and social. AOL “invested early in the curve and deep into content” in order to tie in business models and eventually move into paid content. A social strategy offers the possibility of huge distribution for this content play. → Read More
So first things first: We’re not being sold! Instead, we’ve just hired a bunch of brilliant writers and a new COO. Also, we have seen a resurgence of community support (with over a thousand people attending our NYC meetup last night, for example), are back at around 12% on the much-lauded Techmeme leaderboard and are gearing up for our NYC Disrupt conference.
Our traffic is up with regards to unique visits year over year and we are working on getting our pageviews up to pre-awful redesign levels. More importantly, we cheer stuff like “TechCrunch fuck yeah” all the time in our company Yammer, which for us is a better indicator of progress than all of the above. → Read More
We’ve been writing so many “please welcome star writer” posts lately that we’re having to work hard to think of new versions of that headline. But that’s the only painful part of this one, as we’re very excited to announce that pro blogger Ryan Lawler will be joining the team on Monday.
You might know him for his work over last five years covering various media, telecom, online video, and — as he made his way from New York to San Francisco with GigaOM — startups. → Read More
There’s lots going on behind the scenes here at TechCrunch — not only are we hiring top writers and putting together a kick-ass lineup for Disrupt in New York next month, we’re also getting a chief operating officer (among other moves soon to be announced).
Ned Desmond, a veteran media executive from Time Inc and more recently an entrepreneur, will be joining us as COO on May 7th. He’s going to be leading all of our non-editorial operations out of our San Francisco headquarters. He’ll also serve as the general manager of the AOL Tech properties. which include Engadget, TUAW and Joystiq. → Read More
Sure, legends like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle don’t play for the Yankees now, but the team hasn’t just survived the ups and downs over the years. Hate it or love it, the franchise attracts many of the best players in baseball today, and wins championships.
That’s TechCrunch, too.
Peter Ha is returning to us after a few very solid years of editing successes under his belt. He started out as a CrunchGear writer under John Biggs, back in 2006. He went on to found the Techland blog for Time and turned it into a growth story. Then he became the tech editor at The Daily, News Corp’s ambitious tablet project. → Read More
You know every once in a while you come across news about your company and it turns out your boss is no longer your boss anymore. If you’re me this probably happens to you every three months.
Anyways this morning I read in the media that Arianna Huffington (who I think used to be my boss) gained more control within Aol and then subsequently read that actually she had been “demoted.” Okay truth please guys?!
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Hey! So TechCrunch Disrupt New York is just around the corner on May 19-23. So, what, you say, you don’t work here any more, right? (for the newer TechCrunch readers, I’m the guy who founded the site)
Well, yeah, I don’t work here any more because Aol fired me last year. Lots has been written about that. No need to rehash it all here. We’ve all moved on.
→ Read More
We know that many of you visit TechCrunch on the regular for a hearty dose of startup coverage, general tech news and opinionated coverage of the tech zeitgeist. But we also know that the trainwreck posting on our hirings and firings, Aol spats, tech gossip and quibbles between staff is what really gets your fingers clicking and blood boiling.
I mean, it’s like a car accident, you can’t help but stare.
→ Read More
TechCrunch has been staffing up with writers who have worked at top publications in Silicon Valley and around the world – we’re not new to this, we’re true to this. And, Kim-Mai Cutler, our newest hire, is particularly true.
Like Josh and I, she was brought to TechCrunch from Inside Network by Erick Schonfeld. In her last job, she directed coverage of the mobile app ecosystem and became an expert on mobile gaming.
You’ve probably read her stories over the years. But in case you somehow missed them, here are a few of her greatest hits. → Read More
If there’s anything to be learned from the past year, it’s that media people are mostly power vultures — pulling out their forks and knives at the slight sign of vulnerability from those that have influence. Oftentimes some are so eager for the kill that they slip up and impale themselves on those very knives — the pattern repeats over and over again.
Earlier this month, after being beat up by news cycle after news cycle about my — yes, struggling, beloved company – I asked my investor friend why tech bloggers* were so petty. He responded with an adapted Wallace Sayre quote, “Because the stakes are so low.”
→ Read More
TechCrunch has been through a lot lately, and we need to focus on what truly matters: covering startups and innovation. So, this post is going to be short.
But here is what’s going on: Erick Schonfeld is leaving and Eric Eldon is replacing him as editor.
What can you expect from TechCrunch now? → Read More
One of the marks of a great blogger is following your convictions and convincing the world of the truth you know in your heart. Jason Kincaid is that blogger, whether he is calling out Apple for enabling patent trolls or VEVO’s hypocrisy in using pirated video at an event. Jason joined TechCrunch in 2008 straight out of college. He learned fast and just kept getting better, even veering off into video. Here he is interviewing Al Franken, and he also hosted one of our most popular TCTV shows, TC Cribs. (He is also incredibly stylish).
After four years, Jason is leaving TechCrunch. He decided to write his farewell on his own personal blog, which I encourage you to read. Jason has many fans here among readers and the staff alike. He helped to define the character of TechCrunch during our formative years, and he will always be a part of our family. → Read More
Here’s why I love TechCrunch; because I’m going to just post this a little before midnight, and I dare someone to take it down while I sleep.
I. triple. dog. dare. you.
Anyways today we hired a bunch of people (Hi Colleen! Hi Ingrid!) and made some existing people Super Ninja Princesses or something, but in the meantime we lost two crucial members of our team to competitors, Mobile Editor Greg Kumparak and Europe Writer Robin Wauters. It’s a huge loss.
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Silicon Valley absolutely, positively doesn’t need a nap room because in theory we don’t sleep, let alone nap (and if we do need to nap — like in an emergency — we take that shiz home, far far away from hungry competitors!).
Please Aol Mr. Sr. Facilities Manager, take that money and buy us a bunch of Diet Coke to drink late at night or that great beef jerky we used to have or a copyediting slave intern or passes to Burning Man or anything but a room specifically designed for being less productive. → Read More
In case you hadn’t noticed, the state of technology reporting isn’t exactly refreshing these days. There’s a lot of the same news getting rehashed over and over. There’s a lot of interesting stuff that isn’t getting discussed at all because it doesn’t have the word ‘Apple’ in the headline. And there are some bylines that used to appear on this site that have been unceremoniously pushed out of the building.
Sarah Lacy — formerly Editor at Large at TechCrunch, who spearheaded our conference in Beijing this past fall — is looking to help improve the situation. Today Lacy announced the launch of her new site, a startup-focused tech blog called PandoDaily that, among other things, is going to “bring more civility into the blogosophere” (yay!). And she’s also gunning to break plenty of news.
→ Read More
So I tend to think of news in this industry as falling into two basic categories 1) Boring as fuck 2) So hyper-dramatic I feel like I need to take a ton of anti-anxiety medication just to read Techmeme.
While tons of crap posts this week have fallen into the former category, a few have fallen into the latter, mostly MG Siegler’s work surrounding Google’s failed efforts at, well, anything. All of MG’s posts have been, to borrow a phrase, “very well done” — Mostly because they lean into the drama. → Read More
