At least in Amsterdam, they’re clear. You pay for what you want. TechCrunch pretends they don’t get paid for their crappy articles.
Using every opportunity to shill for Ooma, Michael Arrington wrote about Vonage’s improving results and threw in that he’s switching to Ooma. Let’s note why Michael Arrington and TechCrunch are on their way down:
1. TechCrunch doesn’t understand math. We already knew that “serious” Web 2.0 publications like TechCrunch don’t need to understand grammar but now it appears that understanding basic math is unnecessary as well. Let’s look at the quote from the recent Vonage article:
I am a long time Vonage customer but will soon be switching to Ooma available for purchase this morning) and getting rid of that $25/month Vonage fee. Vonage is a lot cheaper than a normal phone line, but free is hard to compete with.
How is Ooma free? It costs a $399 for the “basic hub” and another $40 per phone jack. Last time I checked, $439 != free. With the risk that Ooma may go out of business pretty soon and that you can get Vonage for $20/month, it seems that unless Ooma manages to last over 22 months, it’s losing proposition (that’s before counting the cost of capital which most geeks haven’t the slightest idea about).
2. TechCrunch can’t even get its facts right. A recent article claimed that Blockbuster is desperate to counter NetFlix. Last time I checked, NetFlix is hurting pretty badly and barely generating Free Cash Flow. The exaggeration cracks me up. TechCrunch calls things a success without even understanding statistical significance.
3. Duncan Riley has the IQ of a Persian rug. Let’s not beat a dead horse here, but I would think that having basic writing skills and communication abilities that are at least slightly better than an Orangutan would be a requirement for writing for a serious publication like TechCrunch. That isn’t the case.
4. Payola Hypocrisy. First, TechCrunch criticizes PayPerPost for ruining the credibility of blogs by letting bloggers accept payment for their articles. Then Michael Arrington proceeds to do the same for Ooma. Second, TechCrunch claims there is a “serious conflict of interest at the conference level” and proceeds to do the same by charging companies to present at TechCrunch20. Now Michael Arrington was a lawyer of some sort in his previous life, he should understand that these contradictions make you look like a fool.
So let’s list what TechCrunch doesn’t understand:
- No understanding of basic mathematics or statistical significance
- No understanding of grammar
- No understanding of how to perform research (hint: there’s this revolutionary new tool called “Google” which allows you to perform free research!)
- No understanding of finance, money, or economics
- No understanding of legal reasoning
TechCrunch, cheers to your demise.
Haha! This post couldn’t have been more true. Arrington must have been SOME lawyer… No wonder he’s ducked out for a serious career in the world of Web 2.0 journalism.
I can’t speak to every point you make here, but I agree that Ooma is hardly free.
I did some analysis on Skype vs. Ooma, and although I didn’t look at the cost of capital (I seriously thought about it and then decided against it), it is clear to me that Skype is a better value proposition unless you have Ooma for more than like 3 years. I assume that all hardware will last that long (both skype and Ooma). see it at
Why Skype is Better than Ooma
dude, nobody forces you to read techcrunch. why do you? just stop reading it.
what exactly have you accomplished in your life besides being a duchebag (at which, admittedly, you are fantastically good)? you seem to take a lot of pride in telling others how wrong they are.
it’s easy to criticize. many of the greatest accomplishments in history were done in the face of ridicule. what have you accomplished and why are you hiding behind a wall?
wanna talk shit? prove that you’re worthy. what gives you the credibility to tell others how much their writing or work sucks?
you’re probably one of those people that blames the world for your lack of success. what, you didn’t go to a good school? family wasn’t well to do? your boss sucked? your mom sucked (everyone off on the block).
get a nut sack. tell the world your identity and what you’ve accomplished. then go around blasting people for grammatical mistakes.
LOSER.
OMG. you moderate your comments? with all the shill that you post on other blogs you actually have the audacity to moderate your own comments. hahahaha.
what a fucking loser.
get a nutsack. faggot.
@ Piss in Your Dumpster
I’m glad you felt the need to post twice and realize that we actually approve every single comment.
FYI, it’s spelled “douchebag”. I would suppose that someone like you, to whom the word applies, would have learned how to spell it by now.
It’s incredible that you think that I need to be non-anonymous to have credibility. We’ll have an upcoming post on why anonymity drives honest posting, but we’ll save that for later. Come back and read again.
Your anti-homosexual comments are uncalled for. Neither of the writers for TechDumpster are gay, but it’s offensive irregardless of our sexual orientation. Please continue the good work to show how intelligent and sophisticated TechCrunch fanboys are.
[…] funny how people like Michael Arrington (TechCrunch) and Paul Graham (Y Combinator) love the idea of logic. They use the impression of it […]
Techcrunch plans to accept web 2.0 communism. Michael Arrington reminds me Karl Marx, Stalin, Lennin, etc…
@Apple Source: The Fanboys will soon start calling him “Chairman Mike”…
I’ll give you two guesses who “piss in your dumpster” is, and I look forward to the post on anonymous content (I use the method myself).
Arrington, like others of his ilk, believe they have credentials to back them up, which they do. But, logical arguments cannot be denied by intelligent people.
Do these people really need to know what you do or have done inorder to be able to determine what logically constructed arguments look like? I don’t think so, and it is a lesson in obfuscation, “demean the messesnger, demean the message”.
You do tend to go on in a rant-style in the heart of your posts, though logic is at least near by. For some reason that lends you less credibility (”no accounting for taste”).
I think you are exploring an interesting space within blogging: a factually concerned vallleywag. It could be quite compelling.
Sorry for the long comment and the fact that Arrington is now an insider that is as threatened by you as the traditional journalists are/were of him.
Irregardless? haha. I’m glad you corrected me on douchebag. Apparently you learned English in the 1800s. It’s not a word tough guy. If anything, it’s a double negative or just another example of you trying to sound more intelligent that you are.
Stick to simple words like “regardless.”
Oh, and the quotation marks around “douchebag?” They should be around the period directly adjacent to the word as well. It’s just proper grammar. And while we’re being anal, it’s also two words, “douche bag.”
And as is classic for someone who’s got nothing intelligent to say, you didn’t actually address my point. You just focus on grammar and some peripheral point about your homo sexuality.
Get a life man. Even a first one.
Douche bag.
@ Piss
Your hypocrisy is quite comical.
You can’t on the one hand tell me how to write “douchebag” while criticizing the use of irregardless. Either disagree with nonstandard usages, or agree with them.
I did address your point. I said we allow all comments. We allow yours don’t we?
It’s funny that you come post here twice and still can’t make a point.
Look past the insults (which mind you, are just a product of the kind of comments you leave on other blogs), and read what I wrote in my FIRST post:
*********
nobody forces you to read techcrunch. why do you? just stop reading it.
what exactly have you accomplished in your life besides being a duchebag (at which, admittedly, you are fantastically good)? you seem to take a lot of pride in telling others how wrong they are.
it’s easy to criticize. many of the greatest accomplishments in history were done in the face of ridicule. what have you accomplished and why are you hiding behind a wall?
wanna talk shit? prove that you’re worthy. what gives you the credibility to tell others how much their writing or work sucks?
*********
That is the point you never addressed. What are your qualifications to spew shit on every blog you read. Why do it? What gives you the right to ruin the reading experience for so many other people with your comment spam?
See, you have the option to not visit and read those blogs that you criticize. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the other way around. If I’m interested in a post and I want to read the comment thread, I have no choice but to encounter your comment spam.
And what are you talking about in terms of non-standard usages? Both of your usages were non-standard. I simply corrected you. These weren’t conflicting corrections on my part. The first was a comment on the archaic usage of a word that arguably may not even exist. The second was a comment on the fact that you wrongly corrected how to spell the term douche bag. Mind you, you corrected me - you should have double checked your correction. And the third, which you didn’t mention, was your lack of proper punctuation.
Now, are you going to address my point, or continue to side step the issue with arbitrary diversions?
1. I read TechCrunch because it’s a barometer of what’s going on. I read it because the 540K readers indicate how broad its reach is and therefore it is relevant to those of us in the tech world. I criticize it because I see issues with it. I am trying to prevent people from being misled.
2. You are just using the same weak argument that others do. I use logic to deconstruct other businesses. My background does not impact my use of logic. If I said “I think this site is going to be a success” and was giving opinions, then my background would matter.
This begs the question why you can’t debate any of the actual points I or the other writers post on the site? You think that by attacking me personally that helps prove your point? It doesn’t. Many people you and all the other fanboys as worthless. Your inability to argue just reinforces that view.
3. How am I ruining the reading experience? You earlier stated “nobody forces you to read techcrunch. why do you? just stop reading it.” Why do you then hypocritically criticize my comments? By your own argument, you should just stop reading my comments?
I make valid points and use logic which is why people come to TechDumpster and give feedback. I am wrong at times. I admit it, but at least I use logic and data.
4. You do have a choice not to read my comment Piss. I don’t use multiple names - I am always TechDumpster (living in First Life) so just ignore what’s below that if you don’t want to read my comment.
5. No, you totally missed the point regarding non-standard usage. If “irregardless” is an invented term that is non-standard, so is “douchebag”. Do a search on Google for “douchebag” and “douche bag” - there are almost 3x as many results for the former. Heck, it’s even listed in Wikipedia as slang usage.
I addressed all your issues and now the onus is on you to prove that you have a point at all.
“I addressed all your issues and now the onus is on you to prove that you have a point at all.”
My issues were my point. Thanks for addressing it. I’m sorry for the personal attacks. They were unwarranted, and I definately don’t have anything against gay people. You get pretty slimy with Duncan and the whole TC crew. I don’t know Duncan, and I agree that he has often grammatical errors in his writing, but who cares?
It’s about the content. I think you’d get a lot more respect if you weren’t so focused on minute details of the English language.
I agree that people drink a lot of Web 2.0 kool-aid. But there’s still a lot of cool stuff going on. And it’s not cool to just just spew shit at all Web 2.0 business just because they’re ad supported.
I propose a truce (a truce between me and you, not you and the blogging world - that’s your own problem).
Like I said, I believe far more people would take you seriously if you toned down the ridiculous attacks on English language usage. All this shit is being powered by stuff from India and China anyway!
ok, that was a grammatical cluster fuck. haha.
@ Look
I agree that cool things are happening but what too much hype around stupid things serves to do is create noise so we can’t realize and promote the honest-to-goodness great things going on.
I hope to someday outsource the writing of this blog to Calcutta. Michael Arrington might want to insource a brain from Calcutta too. Truce on.
haha. you mean you don’t want to read about the next generation of digg meets skype with a touch of twitter companies?
that could almost be cool. twitter stuff in, have people vote on it, and then distribute via text to speech over skype. i could see TC covering that. especially if you added a google map component to indicate where the messages are coming from.