I saw SkyGrid\'s founder in an interview with Robert Scoble, and he seemed likable and sharp. And the product looked quite good too. So when I had a chance to play around with SkyGrid, I jumped at the opportunity.<br /> <br /> First of all, their user interface is very nice. It\'s clean, professional a... More >>

I saw SkyGrid\'s founder in an interview with Robert Scoble, and he seemed likable and sharp. And the product looked quite good too. So when I had a chance to play around with SkyGrid, I jumped at the opportunity.<br /> <br /> First of all, their user interface is very nice. It\'s clean, professional and very dynamic. They\'ve structured their industry tree structure quite well as well. I love the fact that I can enter a ticker symbol and get stories. From an end-user experience perspective, it delivers.<br /> <br /> BUT, SkyGrid is ultimately a news aggregation and sentiment analysis service and so it should be measured on the quality of the news it finds first - not the slickness of its UI. On this front, I\'ve found SkyGrid\'s results to be lacking as compared to Google News. I\'ve seen breaking news articles on Google News that weren\'t on SkyGrid, and we\'re talking about highly relevant articles that would be especially relevant to investors who are SkyGrid\'s customers.<br /> <br /> As Gabriel pointed out in his review, the SkyGrid team had a premium offering (I believe it is no longer) but have now moved to an ad-supported model. If SkyGrid was delivering an information advantage through its algorithms and platform, professional investors who are always looking for an information advantage would jump all over it. In that scenario, SkyGrid could be on its way to being the next Bloomberg. But the danger is that if you don\'t deliver a better mousetrap, investors will be quick to drop you and so I\'m assuming the value story wasn\'t compelling enough to keep investors hooked.<br /> <br /> Now, they\'re competing for eyeballs with an ad supported model and this seems like a dangerous business proposition. Normally, this would be a 2-star rating, but I was impressed by the CEO in the interview previously mentioned and do think that they have something interesting here with potential so I\'ve given Skygrid the benefit of the doubt. <br /> <br /> I\'m sure they\'re thinking of this (I hope they are) but providing their service to other finance websites (CNNfn, Yahoo Finance, etc) via a licensing arrangement might be the better way to go than their ad supported idea. Amassing the people at Skygrid to make that viable seems like a very lofty goal. << Less

DocStoc which lets people share documents is on to something huge, and their business model (at least the primary one that I see) is elegant and simple. There are tons of documents out there which are not online. DocStoc lets people share these documents via their site and also allows them to embed them onto their ow... More >>

DocStoc which lets people share documents is on to something huge, and their business model (at least the primary one that I see) is elegant and simple. There are tons of documents out there which are not online. DocStoc lets people share these documents via their site and also allows them to embed them onto their own blog, website, etc. And DocStoc then makes money by showing Google ads around these documents. <br /> <br /> The number of offline documents that there are is staggering and so getting this content online is a huge opportunity. DocStoc has done some smart things to facilitate this, specifically:<br /> <br /> (1) In terms of ease of use, the site is outstanding. They have features that let you upload numerous documents at one time.<br /> (2) DocCash - Recently, they rolled out a feature in which users who upload docs can share the Adsense Revenue 50/50 with DocStoc. This is a great incentive to users to upload their docs and a great way for DS to continue capturing content. While the money for a user may not be a lot, it\'s more than the powerpoint sitting on your hard drive was collecting for sure.<br /> <br /> Their ease of use coupled with DocCash feature give me hope that this idea is one that can catch on. If consultants and others who generate prodigious amounts of content jumped on the DocStoc bandwagon, they also stand to become a bit of a knowledge hub.<br /> <br /> There are also premium offerings they might offer to corporates who are notoriously bad at knowledge management. Think of it as a private-labeled DocStoc. That said, I think their adsense revenue model has some serious potential.<br /> <br /> Why not a 5 star rating?<br /> (1) Their competitor Scribd is bigger and doing quite well. I think this market has room for at least 2 players so this is not a deal killer but as it relates to DocCash, users interested in the money will go with the platform with better payouts, conversion, etc.<br /> (2) They need to better incent users/readers of documents to rate them as this will help determine what is valuable vs not. Controlling the signal to noise ratio as their library grows will be important. In using the DocStoc service, I\'ve seen many things with many views but few ratings<br /> (3) Although scale is a barrier to some extent, there doesn\'t appear to be a serious technological hurdle to replicating their business. Again, I do think having traction with users could be the biggest deterrent for an upstart but as long as DocStoc continues to figure out ways to make it easy for users to upload docs, they should be fine.<br /> <br /> Even with these challenges, I think the company is tackling a great big problem in a way that positions them to be successful. << Less

bit.ly is a competitor to TinyUrl. So it\'s \"business\" is shortening urls which makes it a very popular service on Twitter. bit.ly is a step up from TinyUrl per its claims because it offers a variety of analytics data about the bit.ly shortened urls. <br /> <br />When I look at the \"Quest... More >>

bit.ly is a competitor to TinyUrl. So it\'s \"business\" is shortening urls which makes it a very popular service on Twitter. bit.ly is a step up from TinyUrl per its claims because it offers a variety of analytics data about the bit.ly shortened urls. <br /> <br />When I look at the \"Questions to Consider\" given by ChubbyBrain when writing a review, I imagine they were provided as questions that an investor would ask. <br /> <br />So let\'s go through that process for an investor looking at bit.ly. <br /><ol> <br /><li><b>Is the underlying business concept sound?</b> - What business concept? This is a url shortening service with no revenue model.</li> <br /><li><b>How original is the product or service?</b> - It is not. This is a simple service that is easily replicable.</li> <br /><li><b>Would a customer buy the offerings?</b> - No. Would you pay even $.01 for a url shortening service?</li> <br /><li><b>Is there a clear target market?</b> - No. Twitter users who pay nothing for your service or who likely will never pay anything are not a target market.</li> <br /><li><b>How strong are competitors?</b> - TinyUrl which suffers from some of the same weaknesses has far more marketshare with 75+% of the market as. Let\'s read that again, <a href=\"http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/if-bitly-is-worth-8-million-tinyurl-is-worth-at-least-46-million/\">TinyUrl has 75+% of the market</a>.</li> <br /><li><b>Is there a revenue generation plan?</b> - There doesn\'t seem to be but I can imagine the story around revenue has something to do with their premium analytics. Ha.</li> <br /><li><b>Does the company consistently execute?</b> - I don\'t have enough information on this one.</li> <br /><li><b>How strong is the management team?</b> - I\'d have to say they are good salespeople if they could coax $2 million out of investors for this unoriginal idea.</li> <br /></ol> <br />Then throw in the fact that there are no barriers to entry. Think about if the person who owned z.com came out with a shortening service, wouldn\'t Twitter users want that as it saves them even more characters? <br /> <br />I thought getting investment in this climate was difficult unless you had a sound business plan with a revenue generation plan. When a concept has so many apparent holes, I can only wonder what drove the funding decision. << Less

Airship Ventures offers a pretty interesting product - rides in a massive helium filled Zeppelin (think high-tech blimp). But interesting products don't necessarily translate into interesting, profitable businesses. I noticed that Esther Dyson's EDventure Holdings invested in this company (along with several other an... More >>

Airship Ventures offers a pretty interesting product - rides in a massive helium filled Zeppelin (think high-tech blimp). But interesting products don't necessarily translate into interesting, profitable businesses. I noticed that Esther Dyson's EDventure Holdings invested in this company (along with several other angels). I know Ms Dyson is a space/high-tech transport enthusiast, but it appears her passion has clouded her ability to look at this venture as a real business. <br /> <br /> The company has 30 employees and loses $1.3 million in revenue for the 1 month per annum that the FAA needs to do its inspection. That's not good. They charge $1500 per seat but it can only hold 12 passengers. Also not good. Then there is the issue of wind and weather which make flying the Zeppelin difficult in virtually any mildly inclement weather. Yet another not good factor. (more here: <a href='http://cnnmoney.mobi/money/small_business/small_business/detail/138473/full;jsessionid=04EAF2D7E4A3A8C6B1628A3916C3F5C4#p6)<br'>http://cnnmoney.mobi/money/small_business/small_business/detail/138473/full;jsessionid=04EAF2D7E4A3A8C6B1628A3916C3F5C4#p6)<br</a>; /> <br /> Airship Ventures seems like a fun investment that you can talk about at cocktail parties and is probably great for angel investors who've got more money than they know what to do with. It's akin to investing in a movie - sexy idea with likely no return. But for those seeking a return on investment, this one's a Hindenberg. << Less

I'm not sure why Mahalo deserves anything above 1 star. The last reviewer did a great job identifying that this company has no clear monetization plan and their traffic is stagnating. That sounds like 2 big strikes.<br /> <br /> Jason Calcanis is a "cewebrity" (aka internet celebrity) and so sh... More >>

I'm not sure why Mahalo deserves anything above 1 star. The last reviewer did a great job identifying that this company has no clear monetization plan and their traffic is stagnating. That sounds like 2 big strikes.<br /> <br /> Jason Calcanis is a "cewebrity" (aka internet celebrity) and so should probably start a PR or marketing company as he is excellent at generating buzz. But building a scalable, profitable technology company doesn't seem to be in his bag of tricks and is not a function of buzz solely. If self-promotion and blogosphere mentions could be translated into nickels, Mahalo would be worth a lot. Unfortunately, for Mahalo, they are not. <br /> <br /> One just need to look at Digg as well with Kevin Rose - another cewebrity. The buzz is great but their revenue #s are minuscule and they're hemorrhaging cash. Mahalo is no different.<br /> <br /> Style only takes you so far. << Less

Kijiji will go down as another sad and pathetic attempt by eBay to stay current and relevant. And it will ultimately fail. As Jonathan rightly points out in his review, it is a better looking site which is more \'web2.0\' than Craigslist. But, unfortunately, eBays application of lipstick to Kijiji\'s front-end doesn... More >>

Kijiji will go down as another sad and pathetic attempt by eBay to stay current and relevant. And it will ultimately fail. As Jonathan rightly points out in his review, it is a better looking site which is more \'web2.0\' than Craigslist. But, unfortunately, eBays application of lipstick to Kijiji\'s front-end doesn\'t do anything to change the fact that this service is a loser. <br /> <br />eBay\'s motivation to start Kijiji appears to be more driven by ego than a desire to build a solid business. eBay owns a stake of Craigslist and despite their insistence and attempts to influence Craiglist\'s direction, CL remains adamantly anti-profit/revenue maximization. And so it appears that Kijiji was an attempt by Goliath (eBay to be clear) to show David (CL) what happens when you mess with a $17B market cap (as of 12/25/08) giant. Unfortunately, eBay and Kijiji are the ones being taught a lesson. <br /> <br />The traffic stats available on Chubby per compete.com show how bad Kijiji is getting hammered. In Nov, Craiglist had 40.5 million visitors to Kijiji\'s 2.5 million. Adding insult to injury, Craiglist\'s traffic has grown 47% over the last year vs Kijiji\'s 50% growth. That is 47% growth on a much larger base of visitors - one that is several orders of magnitude larger than Kijiji\'s. <br /> <br />eBay, a once great web company, seems to have fallen prey to the idea that they can just use their scale and loose connections to their brand to make new businesses successful. And Kijiji, absent some game-changer, is a pig with lipstick that unfortunately is on its way to the slaughterhouse. <br /> <br /><span class=\'add_review\'>On 03/01/2009, Amy added:</span> <br />Today\'s reported news that Kijiji is trying to rebrand itself as \"eBay Classifieds\" seems to be further proof of the lack of relevance of Kijiji and them taking trivial and immaterial measures to become relevant. While an association with eBay might help since people have heard of eBay and it\'s much easier to spell than Kijiji. (Yes - that\'s 3 i\'s and 2 j\'s) <br /> <br />Erick Schonfeld sums this up best at the end of his TechCrunch post where he writes \"Kijiji is going to need more than a name change to challenge Craigslist.\" This is just eBay sloppily applying lipstick on a pig. Bye bye Kijiji. <br /> <br />The TC post about the \'rebranding\' is here: <a href=\'http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/28/kijiji-isnt-kutting-it-how-about-ebay-classifieds/\'>http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/28/kijiji-isnt-kutting-it-how-about-ebay-classifieds/</a>; << Less

Per their website (<a href=\'http://www.sleep.fm),\'>http://www.sleep.fm),</a>; \"Sleep.FM consists of a group of individuals whose hard work is establishing the Internet\'s first smart and community powered alarm cl... More >>

Per their website (<a href=\'http://www.sleep.fm),\'>http://www.sleep.fm),</a>; \"Sleep.FM consists of a group of individuals whose hard work is establishing the Internet\'s first smart and community powered alarm clock.\" <br /> <br />Yes - I scratched my head after reading that line as well. <br /> <br />I see little to no market need for this service and therefore, no business model or revenue/profit prospects as a result. It\'s been backed by an investment firm/incubator in Philadelphia, DreamIt ventures (http://www.chubbybrain.com/investors/dreamitventures), but despite their support, I see this one quickly taking a permanent nap. << Less

I\'m cynical by nature, as probably evident to those reading my reviews and observing my star-rating distribution. And for that very reason I\'m writing to applaud the management team of Last.fm, <a href=\"http://blog.last.fm/2009/02/23/techcrunch-are-full-of-shit\">who righteously stood up and called ... More >>

I\'m cynical by nature, as probably evident to those reading my reviews and observing my star-rating distribution. And for that very reason I\'m writing to applaud the management team of Last.fm, <a href=\"http://blog.last.fm/2009/02/23/techcrunch-are-full-of-shit\">who righteously stood up and called out TechCrunch\'s shoddy and downright unprofessional journalism</a> (if you can really call it journalism). <a href=\"http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/did-lastfm-just-hand-over-user-listening-data-to-the-riaa/\">Last week TechCrunch reported that Last.fm caved into requests by the RIAA to deliver personally identifiable information for those users who were illegally listening to tracks from the not-yet-released U2 album</a>. The only problem was the source: a rumor from a person whose friend worked at CBS (last.fm\'s parent company), with no second source to corroborate the story. I\'ll certainly be downgrading <a href=\"http://www.chubbybrain.com/companies/techcrunch/reviews/amyz\">my three-star TechCrunch rating</a> once again, but for now, let\'s focus on the positive that earns Last.fm four stars. <br /> <br />Today, Richard Jones, the founder of Last.fm, responded to TechCrunch\'s unfounded allegations with a post of his own on Last.fm\'s blog entitled \"Techcrunch are full of s**t\". In the post, he not only categorically denied the rumor, but also was very open and tactical in explaining how Last.fm collects and uses their data. Specifically, he reiterated the policy that Last.fm will \"never share personally identifiable data such as email and IP addresses\". Furthermore, he states that the process necessary to run such a report that would link individual users to specific songs is \"simply impossible..without the team here noticing\". It\'s true that we live in a day and age where you can\'t trust a CEO further than you can throw him (or her). But a quick, vehement and PR-less denial speaks volumes for Richard Jones\' credibility. The strong language he used, albeit a bit unprofessional, shouts honesty. <br /> <br />I applaud the management team of Last.fm for handling the situation the way it did and quickly connecting with their user base via the best way they knew how: their blog. I also applaud CBS for not standing in the way. And even if CBS didn\'t know Mr. Jones was going to deliver such a stern denial, I doubly approve because he did it knowing he\'d face punitive measures from his own parent company for being so blunt. The proof is in the pudding: read the updates to the original TechCrunch post as well as the comments. Last.fm won over the crowd and saved itself from a potentially disastrous situation. Management made all the difference in this one. << Less

I'm not sure why other reviewers have given Digg such high ratings given there is no business model or sound underlying business concept here. As I've said before, a "cool" service or idea doesn't necessarily translate into a viable business, and Digg appears to have been working under the premise of "l... More >>

I'm not sure why other reviewers have given Digg such high ratings given there is no business model or sound underlying business concept here. As I've said before, a "cool" service or idea doesn't necessarily translate into a viable business, and Digg appears to have been working under the premise of "let's get a lot of traffic and then someone will buy us for a lot of money."<br /> <br /> With those acquisition opportunities gone, Digg is forced to think about the unimaginable - having a real business that makes something called money. Google was rumored to be interested in July 2008 in acquiring Digg - <a href='http://thenextweb.com/2008/07/23/google-in-negotiations-to-acquire-digg-good.'>http://thenextweb.com/2008/07/23/google-in-negotiations-to-acquire-digg-good.</a>; But that is all in the past.<br /> <br /> Digg is very reminiscent of 1999-2001 where eyeballs, hits and other non-sensical metrics were the rage. The names of the metrics have changed to the web2.0 equivalents (pageviews I guess) but the story is the same. Metrics that don't offer a direct translation into revenue or profits are being used to justify a business' viability. On a side note, I see people talking about Twitter in a few years in the same way (see my review of Twitter here - http://www.chubbybrain.com/companies/twitter/reviews/amyz)<br /> <br /> I wondered if I was alone in not understanding how Digg makes money but found at least a few other just as perplexed (one example here - http://blog.dotkam.com/2008/01/09/how-does-digg-make-money/). What is most interesting when you Google "How does Digg make money?" is that there are many more links by people who detail ways you can make money off of Digg. What this means is that other people <b>seem</b> to have figured out ways to play Digg to make money off the service. Here's one example: http://tnerd.com/2006/10/03/diggcom-how-to-make-money-from-diggcom/<br /> <br /> I'll summarize the process people can use to make money off of Digg although it is a bit more detailed in the link (caveat: the link is dated - 2006 - so Digg may have figured out ways to prevent this by now. But given the # of links talking about making money off of Digg, it seems new methods have emerged) <br /> <br /> These gamers (and that is a compliment) are essentially playing an arbitrage game. They pay a certain amount of money to get traffic to their website from Digg. Once they get these people on their site, they make more money off these visitors with the ads they host from Google Adsense. (Note: Making more than you pay for a customer is a good idea in business) <br /> <br /> Per the post, the math works like this (these numbers are unaudited):<br /> <br /> You pay a vendor to get 51 Diggs on Digg = $71 -- This translates into 10-15,000 users to the website paying this amount.<br /> This # of visitors drive approximately $4-$500 of Adsense revenue<br /> Resulting profit to website owner = $329-$429<br /> <br /> Even if advertising rates have dipped, the margins would still be quite healthy. Perhaps Digg can figure out a way to insert themselves into this transaction. Even if they were to take $100 of this, it would still leave the website owner with a healthy margin and make Digg some much needed revenue as well. This might be somewhat contrary to the 'power to the people' doctrine under which Digg was founded, but it's foolish to leave this money on the table when others are using Digg's platform to profit.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, however, I don't see Digg making money and eventually getting acquired for less than what's been invested in them. Again, another great service with little prospects to be a real business. << Less

I think <b>TechCrunch</b> (www.techcrunch.com) may be past its prime - hence my rating. In a few months, if they continue on their current path, I see it as a 2 or 3 star blog. But for now, it is a great blog definitely deserving of 4 stars. <br... More >>

I think <b>TechCrunch</b> (www.techcrunch.com) may be past its prime - hence my rating. In a few months, if they continue on their current path, I see it as a 2 or 3 star blog. But for now, it is a great blog definitely deserving of 4 stars. <br /> <br />I will admit that I\'ve been a TechCrunch (TC) junkie for some time but recently my addiction seems to have weakened. That said, I still check it regularly - just less than I used (estimate 5x per day now vs 15-20x before). It\'s also a bit strange to write a review of TC which often provides critical commentary of other sites/companies. Feels a bit like the shoe being on the other foot. <br /> <br />So let\'s begin. What do I like: <br /><ul> <br /><li>TC as a site is focused primarily on web2.0 technologies and does a great job covering this scene. They\'re plugged in and often can break news that is interesting to tech aficionados (although sometimes the news can be quite banal as well) <br /><li>It\'s a great place to learn about startups and emerging technologies and ideas <br /><li>I find <b>Michael Arrington</b>\'s posts and his take no prisoners attitude to be quite refreshing as he tells it like he sees it. He can be cutting, snarky even at times and it makes for interesting reading. <br /><li>As of late, I\'ve started to enjoy reading articles from some of the other authors, most notably, Robin Wauters (see Robin\'s posts here: http://www.techcrunch.com/author/robin/) and Jason Kincaid (Jason\'s posts here: http://www.techcrunch.com/author/jason/) <br /></ul> <br />So given all the positives - good editorial content, up-to-date stories, etc, what is not to like. I have several concerns/gripes with TC as it stands in the recent past. <br /><ul> <br /><li>Michael Arrington is a double-edged sword. His writing can be funny and engaging but he also can get into pretty sophomoric back and forths with other people on topics that nobody aside from a few Silicon Valley types might care about or find interesting. There was a recent dust-up with Loic LeMeur (heard of him? me neither but he\'s here http://loiclemeur.com/) which consumed the blog\'s contents for a day. That\'s a waste of time for readers. I think you can do this a handful of times but abuse the outlet too many times and you lose people immediately or slowly as may be my case. Yes, it is ultimately Michael\'s blog so he can do what he wants but this type of stuff should stop if maintaining the readership is a goal as it should be. The inside jokes with Robert Scoble and the Loics of the world should be put into a separate blog so the 200 people in the world who care about those guys can read that stuff. <br /><li>Related to #1 is the annoying idea that Michael and some of his friends are somehow pseudo-celebrities. While I\'m sure startups say nice things to get coverage, I think these guys need to remember where they stack up in the celebrity scale. Somewhere slightly below Danny Bonaduce by my estimation. Get over yourselves please. <br /><li>The layout of the blog is increasingly cluttered and terrible. It seems that the content now consumes only half the page with half dedicated to ads and other things that are not content which is what draws readers there. <br /><li>There is entirely too much talk about Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Y! Combinator. I liked TC because it unearthed startups and offered insights about them. Now it seems every 3rd post is about some trivial iPhone app, Twitter or Facebook. Who cares? <br /><li>Reader comments are generally terrible. I\'m all for democracy and letting everyone have a voice, but I wish the comments were somehow monitored because each post gets 50-60 which is a testament to TC\'s reach, but out of 50-60, there are 2 to 3 that are actually insightful or useful. The rest resemble spam (some locator guy who leaves comments with his urls everywhere), are from people saying something negative about the startup/founders with no real justification or just nonsense from semi-literate readers. And then there are those few gems which actually talk about the post and offer some insight that you can learn from, and these get lost in a sea of garbage comments. <br /><li>Annoying \"cross-sell\" - TC has diversified into other areas building CrunchGear to cover gadgets, MobileCrunch to cover mobile (surprise) and even offers CrunchBoard where people can post jobs, services, for sale items, etc. While I appreciate their desire to diversify, they needlessly cross-promote these services on the main TC blog even when it doesn\'t fit. Most of these add-on services don\'t have scale/traffic like TC and so I\'d presume don\'t have stand-alone readership that is all that impressive. Then things like CrunchBoard which lists jobs had 30 jobs on it. This is embarassing for TC. Get rid of this or don\'t hawk it in the main TC blog until it\'s legitimate. <br /></ul> <br />I believe all of the above can be remedied with fairly low effort so hopefully they\'re hearing these comments from other readers and will consider making the changes. <br /> <br />My rating for TC is based on my view of it as a \'customer\' of their information hence I\'ve placed this review\'s theme under the product/services tag. But while I\'m at it, here are some thoughts on TechCrunch\'s business model/value which I think are questionable/less valuable at this point. <br /><ul> <br /><li>Michael is the brand behind TC. Whether he or others on his team will admit it or not, if he goes, TC is done. That reliance on a single person makes for a less valuable business. But this is a limitation of most blogs I\'d gather - not just TC. They are tied to the personality of one or two founders. <br /><li>The web2.0 downturn and its ultimate likely demise means that TC needs to figure out what\'s next (if they want it to continue). I\'m sure they\'re thinking about this, but there is not a clear next market. Sure they could move to or start something in green tech (the next hot thing) but that\'s starting over as the readers of TC will not port over well to that nor will the TC team\'s contacts. Plus, with GreenTechMedia and GigaOm out there, the room for another blog in that arena is reduced. <br /><li>Advertising taking a bath - hence the overcrowding on the main page to hawk more ads. Plus, the site\'s layout tends to be page-view driven vs what is best for the reader. These are TC\'s metrics of success so the question is whether TC is a one-trick pony (advertising/sponsorship) or do they have a more scalable place they can take their business? It doesn\'t seem that Michael and team honestly have an idea on this front or perhaps they\'re holding their cards close. <br /></ul> <br />I realize I\'ve been quite critical of TechCrunch in this post, but I sincerely hope they go back to critical assessments of real startups as that is what got me hooked initially. Based on many reader comments, I think that would be valued and I\'m not alone with this perspective. <br /> <br /><span class=\'add_review\'>On 02/18/2009, Amy added:</span> <br />Well, it\'s been a bit since my initial review on TechCrunch, but today I\'m downgrading TC to 3-stars for a few reasons based on my prior concerns (and some new ones): <br /> <br />#1 - The departure of Michael Arrington for the month of February. Sure, he will be back, but say what you want about him, he keeps it interesting. The rest of the crew\'s writing is uninspired and absent of anything newsworthy. <br /> <br />#2 - 70% of posts are now about Twitter and Facebook. I don\'t care and from the comments, many other readers don\'t. <br /> <br />#3 - The intelligence and general commentary by readers of TC has become a mix of disrespectful rants, imbecilic thoughts by fans of some app or TC or just plain useless drivel and commentary from people who are nothing short of crazy. There is the occasional misogyny and racist commentary but that is what you\'d expect from a blog about technology, right? Of course. Sounds like a great target for advertisers too. <br /> <br />The worst part about #3 is that there are actually some smart people who read and comment on TC but in the sea of mediocre commentary, those interesting ideas are drowned out. <br /> <br />What got me to make this downgrade was a series of things but most recently, it was a post on TC about Facebook changing its ToS in response to feedback by users. The post is here: <br /> <br /><a href=\'http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/17/facebook-backtracks-under-community-pressure-goes-back-to-old-tos-for-now/#comments<br\'>http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/17/facebook-backtracks-under-community-pressure-goes-back-to-old-tos-for-now/#comments<br</a>; /> <br /> <br />Of the 74 comments (as of my writing this review), there are about 10% that are thoughtful and from people whose perspectives sound interesting, even if I disagree. The remainder are not just useless but downright odd. My \"favorite\" is by a commenter calling himself \"The More You Look, the Less You See\". Per him/her, social networking apps are not being funded by VCs. This person writes that Facebook is a giant offering by the government to collect intelligence on people. Per this person \"They Cold War is over and they need to adapt to 21st Century practices to monitor people. Hello social apps.\" <br /> <br />I rest my case. << Less