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07 Sep 2011 00:06

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Tech: Michael Arrington to AOL: You guys said editorial independence!

  • cause Facing an editorial crisis caused by the announcement of something called the CrunchFund, AOL forced Michael Arrington to step away from his baby, TechCrunch, in an attempt to ease up on an apparent conflict of interest that gave Arianna Huffington fits.
  • reaction Arrington isn’t having that. Earlier today, he reiterated the editorial independence AOL was supposed to give him. He gave them three options: Keep TechCrunch editorially independent, sell the site back to the shareholders, or he walks. Boom.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2011 13:13

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Tech: Michael Arrington, TechCrunch another example of incestuous tech ethics

  • As we wait to see just how involved Arrington will remain, as a media company that should supposedly hold up some sort of journalistic ethics, AOL is coming out looking quite sleazy.
  • The Atlantic Wire’s Rebecca Greenfield • Offering her take on the debacle revolving around Michael Arrington and TechCrunch. Here’s the issue we see, as outsiders: Michael Arrington has always been as much of a player in Silicon Valley as he’s been a journalist, so there’s always been a small conflict of interest there. But by making the “player” element a bigger part of his job title by creating a venture capital fund, he makes himself a target. But wait. Tech journalism is already incestuous and ethically broken. A few examples: Business Insider’s Henry Blodget was once a financial analyst barred from the securities market for fraud. The WSJ’s Kara Swisher is married to a female Google exec (which she discloses). And Gizmodo parent Gawker Media pays for stories that can draw millions of eyeballs to their sites. The difference is that AOL, which bought TechCrunch a year ago, is a big company that knows better. Or should. And the end result is that it makes AOL look really bad. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jan 2011 09:27

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Biz: Cheezburger Network: Stupid videos, insanely high funding

  • $30 million in funding for cat videos and The Daily What source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Sep 2009 19:47

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Biz, Tech: Twitter has a lot of venture capital; it should give us some

  • $100 million amount of money being injected into the site in a hot round of venture capital source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Sep 2009 20:26

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Tech: Twitter is worth a bit more than 140 characters would suggest

  • $50 million the amount Twitter raised in its latest round of venture-capital funding source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 May 2009 23:09

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Biz, U.S.: Need startup funding? Look no further than, uh, Kalamazoo

  • Silicon Valley’s drying up Despite the bevy of great ideas out there, one area can apparently handle so many great ideas, and venture capital in Silicon Valley is starting to dry up. And we’re in the Internet era, remember. You can be innovative anywhere! source
  • Silicon Valley’s drying up Despite the bevy of great ideas out there, one area can apparently handle so many great ideas, and venture capital in Silicon Valley is starting to dry up. And we’re in the Internet era, remember. You can be innovative anywhere!
  • Toledo’s giving grants Fortunately for startups willing to move their entire business to the Midwest, municipal governments are offering to give significant financial help. But those purses close if they’re not willing to invest in the community. source
  • Silicon Valley’s drying up Despite the bevy of great ideas out there, one area can apparently handle so many great ideas, and venture capital in Silicon Valley is starting to dry up. And we’re in the Internet era, remember. You can be innovative anywhere!
  • Toledo’s giving grants Fortunately for startups willing to move their entire business to the Midwest, municipal governments are offering to give significant financial help. But those purses close if they’re not willing to invest in the community.
  • Rust belt tax breaks You can guess why cities in Ohio and Michigan are so aggressive about getting tech companies in their cities – two good reasons, in fact, GM and Chrysler. Which is why they want startups to stick around. No fly-by-nights. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 May 2009 09:32

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Biz, Tech: Protip: Want venture capital? Make a cloud computing startup.

  • Apparently, it’s the big thing for investors right now. Despite the lack of name recognition, there’s a heavy amount of interest in companies who are involved in cloud computing – i.e. using a huge cluster of servers to run powerful applications, rather than forcing those apps to run on home computers. Anonymous companies like Engine Yard and Elastra – who run services to keep those cloud computing apps afloat – are able to get tens of millions in investments in a down economy. Did someone hear the sound of a gold rush? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

31 Mar 2009 10:47

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Tech: So Google, you have a new venture capital fund. Wanna help us?

  • We have a pretty cool, innovative format going on here. We’re not lame like most of those other blogs out there. We have a sense of humor and good taste in music. If this web site’s URL had a girlfriend, it’d be an Asian Design major. source
  • There are lots of ways you could help us – priority in search results, usage of Gmail and Google Docs – but ultimately, we think the best way would be giving us lots of money, so we could hire a huge staff. Thanks in advance. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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