TechCrunch is one of the leading technology blogs that has a lot of influence on venture capitalists and web startup companies alike. Basically TechCrunch is the middleman between an up and coming web startup company and gaining enough publicity to get funding or acquired. Being the middleman of such a powerful tool isn’t easy though. People have tried to break into Arrington’s house to get publicity and most recently, someone at the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany spat in his face.
Arrington believes that allegations from other bloggers directed animosity at him.
“Whoever is the top blog will get attacked by everyone else and that’ll just be the way it is,” stated Arrington in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We really need to think about, the community of bloggers, if we’re going to continue to slay our own for competitive reasons.”
Arrington believes that other bloggers allege that TechCrunch accepts payments or favors for publicity. A couple of sites he blamed for damaging TechCrunch’s reputation for allegations includes AllThingsD.com and Valleywag, a technology gossip blog under the Gawker Media network. Both AllThingsD co-founder Kara Swisher and Gawker founder Nick Denton personally responded to Arrington’s blame game.
“Our site is trying to raise ethical and reporting standards in the tech blogosphere but is in no way responsible for people stalking Michael Arrington. To say so is truly unfortunate on his part,” stated Swisher. “I am appalled he is being stalked, which is scary and disturbing, and am sorry for the strife it has clearly caused him and his family.”
Nick Denton stated that Arrington’s decision to step down for a month “says more about his emotional volatility than it does about anything more meaningful — like the pressures on tech journalists or Internet publishers.” He added “Gawker titles have made many people’s lives uncomfortable, but I’ve never received a death threat.”
Arrington isn’t worried about TechCrunch’s traffic going down at all since he has many other writers maintaining the site. Last month, TechCrunch received 650,000 unique visitors, up from 397,000 the year before.
“Did Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates or Bush take any break when they were attacked with eggs, cakes & shoes? Then why should Arrington do so,” wrote Labnol founder Amit Agarwal on his Twitter account.
I feel sympathetic for Arrington, but he was wrong for blaming his competition for the attacks on him. Especially when TechCrunch publishes stories criticizing the livelihood of many others too. This includes Dare Obasanjo and Ted Murphy.
