CNET Show Its Slip but so Too Does Techcrunch.
Posted on October 14, 2006
Filed Under For Argument's Sake |
It was a surprise to me to see techcrunch major today on CNET’s falling site visits.
For those outside tech circles CNET has been one of the most visited web sites out there with nearly 1.4 billion page views in September 2005.
The argument is CNET has slipped because tech blogs like techcrunch are taking over the provision of information in technical areas.
More interesting, CNET has tried to diversify into food and parenting where it has acquired and relaunched sites that make use of blogs but which also have too much of a corporate feel to be successful in today’s unusually erratic creative environment.
What do I mean by that - well take a look at techcrunch. Several top sites have started to carry a definition of the human network - it’s a CISCO sponsored thing. Luminaries of the web are asked to place a definition on their websites. This is techncrunch’s: “We are all part of a flat mega-connected hierarchy….”
Well either the structure is flat or its hierarchal but it can’t be both at the same time.
Mega-connected?
“The human network is humanity in its purest and most beautiful form….”
What does that mean? If you define humanity as human (?), beautiful and a network then it makes some kind of tautological sense but only if.
Techcrunch has probably taken a huge chunk of CNET’s traffic over the past twelve months but it could still do with an editor and, let’s face it a better grasp of semantics.
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2 Responses to “CNET Show Its Slip but so Too Does Techcrunch.”
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Hi Haydn, good points!
I think it was Jason Calacanis on a recent Gillmor Gang who argued that Mike Arrington needs to hire an editor in chief - but for a different reason.
If he ever hopes to sell Techcrunch, he’ll need to distance himself personally from the brand, or else it’s worthless without him.
Great to see this stuff covered on an Irish blog. Keep it up!
Conn
Conn - thanks for dropping by. I’m mentioning your blog in an article coming up in the Irish Times - don’t know when it goes in yet. Will drop you a line.