We’ve gotten our hands on three free passes to the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco on April 15-18, valued at $1,500 each. We traded these passes for excess advertising inventory on our sites, and our plan is to give them away to readers.
I want to have some fun with giving these out. Last year we gave away a free pass to SXSW to the reader who had the best reason for going, but it turned out to be a massive competition for the biggest sob story. It was depressing.
So for the Web 2.0 Expo, we’re going to do something a little different. I want you to tell me how much we (occasionally) suck. Sometimes our predictions are, with the benefit of hindsight, way off. Or they had no logical basis to begin with. Or perhaps we got some crucial fact wrong. Whatever it is, I want you to dig out the worst post in TechCrunch history and write about why it’s so bad. A good place to start is our Company Index.
Here are the rules: You can attack any post published on TechCrunch (not MobileCrunch, CrunchGear or any of our other sites). But you can’t personally attack the writer unless it’s me (Michael Arrington). Points will be given for originality, creativity and humor, but deducted for outright and unsupported meanness and/or ad hominem attacks. The best entries, in my opinion, will be the ones that find us stating a one-sided opinion about the future of a startup or market segment that turned out to be flat out wrong.
To enter, you need to write your entry on your blog and either successfully trackback to this post or add a link in the comments to what you’ve written. If you don’t have a blog, I recommend starting one at Wordpress, Vox or Blogger. It only takes a minute to set up, and hopefully this will be the first of many interesting blog posts that you write.
We’ll pick the top ten or so entries and then let readers vote for the three winners. Entries must be written and added to the trackbacks or comments below by noon PST on Saturday, April 7 (comments and trackbacks will be turned off at that time). The voting will start on Monday, April 9 and go for 48 hours.
While this is mostly for fun, I’ll be reading every entry carefully and pulling out as much constructive criticism as possible. This will be a painful, but useful, way to become a better writer.
Update: Wow, I regret this already. Even our former writer Marshall Kirkpatrick is piling on. 
Can I add my name to the list of writers that you can personally attack? If anyone hates my TC contributions that much, and they’re funny, I want to read them!
HAH! Awesome.
I am sure you would never wanna try this again
Yeah, well - I guess asking the pathetic to tell you how pathetic you can get makes some kind of sense if you are truly pathetic? The problem is that the pathetic are pathetically bad at judging how pathetic something actually is (or even the fact that they are as pathetically pathetic as they are in the first place). All pretty pathic, really.
ha, I have a good story/criticism to go along with a Tech Crunch post that I should tell. You’ll enjoy this one.
-JLB
It’s really pathetic that I couldn’t even key pathetic properly that one last time. Must be getting apathetic?
Prasad - I’m hoping this will give people a chance to just get it all off their chest.
The Tech Crunch Chasm
There,
On the pedastal,
A great, shining light.
You,
Reviewed me,
Like a demi god might.
They,
Came running,
My numbers exploded.
Then,
They departed,
My growth eroded.
Love Mick!
I’ll drop off a box of tissues at the post-office today
That’s the stupidest fucking idea I have ever heard of… can I have my pass now
-chrisco
You should give it to the following people:
1. Allen Stern
2. Drama 2.0
3. Me
I will buy them all beers
Better yet, I will do this:
I was a TechCrunch reader a long long long time ago. What was nifty was that back then you began this site as a consistent company profile website. I browsed back all your past profiles and the one that really sticks out of my mind was your first post about Technorati.
What was outright hilarious was that you declared Technorati a Web2.0 old schooler. Jesus Christ. 2005… What do we call Technorati now? Web 2.0 geezer? Oh how simple those days were: a phone call a phone call there and you’re suddenly the savior the failed marketing VPs were desperate for.
Now we get insight and coverage such as: sites that spam your telephone numbers, sites that lets you draw Flash cartoons, sites that adds comic style dialog boxes on your videos and pictures, and sites that that aggregate aggregated data from news aggregators.
So hip hip hooray that we’re way past being old school in Web 2.0, hip hip hooray to burning ad money with cigars like it ain’t no thang, hip hip hooray to the shitty sites and pointless drivel.
Here’s to Web 3.0
PS: You’re lucky Nick Denton fired Douglas; The Valleywag/TechCrunch drama was the only high point of your little rollercoaster of a blog.
PSS: TechCrunch 7 kinda sucked too. I would have liked sushi instead of just hamburger finger food. Could have opted for some lobster too.
PSSS: I don’t know if this has enough hatorade yet.
Mike, in one word: brilliant.
I think this is a great idea just as I think you’re in for one hell of a read once the masses start going at it
Mick - great poem. Too many entrepreneurs (myself included) are looking for that TechCrunch post / review. The real question is, what is your target demographic. I would say that 98% most sites aren’t targeted to TechCrunch readers.
However, it certainly is a good way to see how scalable your site is!
is alaska miller a girl? other than that im game. -ooO
Here’s why you suck: I’ve been leaving comments here at TechCrunch for the last 2 months, and they haven’t been posted. I finally realized this recently, and narrowed it down to the Akismet comment spam filter. Evidently my email addy had been falsely blacklisted.
And it’s not just TechCrunch. Any blog running Akismet has thoroughly wasted my time as I commented and commented, wondering why my thoughts just disappeared into thin air.
And today… today I finally got the Automattic guys to fix it. And this is my first comment that (hopefully) will finally post, thus ending two months of wasted comments on this site. Thank you for wasting my time with a wonderfully hyperactive spam trap. You suck.
And now I will click submit. Will it post? We’ll… find… out… now…
YES!
It’s official! You totally suck.
Looking at those trackbacks - looks like I got the first critique posted, besided some strange poem about how TC love is too much to handle! Hoo ya - I’m first again! Speaking of being slow to the punch, I think TC’s really slowed down since…say December or so!
lol
Welcome, Josh.
Marshall, that was a good one, but I’m not sure you qualify since you are an ex writer of TechCrunch who occasionally still writes for TechCrunch. Plus, for extra points you should have trashed one of your own posts.
Occasionally suck? Now that’s rich.
Is there a limit to our number of entries?
No Kewtr, go crazy if you like.
See here:
http://blogjam.typepad.com/whm....._cont.html
Damn, I really should have thought of that. I should have ripped on my own post “comparing 3 mobile comparison shopping services” but it was such a snoozer when I wrote it that I didn’t want to even bring it up again. Hmmmm…I’ll try and give it more thought!
lolzz…heights of creativity, I’d call it.
But, what made you think you (occasionally) suck?
Replace “occasionally” with “conclusively” and “convincingly”- the judgement of a new reader.
Worst post for me was April Fools joke. 2 reasons,
1.My son (7 yrs old) asked me “Daddy what is fuckedcompany.com?”..try explaining to a 7 year old that he shouldn’t swear..
2.I have had to read stacks of posts covering it..
Holy linkbait Batman!
Hi Mike,
If your looking for a poll to help decide the winners from the top 10 you know where to go!
great idea but I say make it harder and make people film themselves doing beat poetry to the subject.
I really can’t think of anyone post but maybe if someone wants to do one they should checkout all the digg releated ones and why Micheal won’t say a bad word about his secret love child Kevin Rose ;p
It’s true, I am a big fan of Digg.
I hate TechCrunch cause its so web 2.0 centric. Even if I got a ticket to go, why would I want to? Its like, “Hey look, isn’t that Justin”!
To add insult to injury, I will not only launch invective, I will do so on LiveJournal.
Interesting way to get a whole heap of trackbacks, I guess you guys subscribe to the school of thought that all publicity is good publicity.
Does a post on crunchnotes count?
No, TechCrunch only.
Josh, it must suck not being able to share your intelligent comments with the world!
Mike you know valleywag is going to be onto this
good luck!
Well aren’t you a brave one…you know, if you did it to yourself (what an idea), Michael, I suppose we could call it “blog hari kari”…
…with the way you’ve set up the competition, it’ll be “blog death by a 1,000 cuts”…
Only TechCrunch? Boring, I’m going shopping instead.
TechCrunch is no crunchy like google nor munchy like go2web20 nor crispy like digg.. Life is hell with it’s huge content in the RSS feeds.. Love will be in the air.. But technology will not be spared if the trend continues.. Wake up.. Wake up..
I missed the instructions and created a “why techcrunch (the site) sucks” - oh well, I will save it for another contest
This one is the worst post. Gaming Technorati, Google and TechMeme. Anyone who participates in this is completely dickless.
This is actually a great idea. I ran a “send me your most creative” whatever contest once and it’s amazing the stories you get about how “I must win because my dog just died and my boyfriend has the clap.”
This embraces what you wrote about when you criticized the mainstream media, i.e.: letting the community correct anything that’s really wrong. I’m looking forward to reading the winning entries.
I don’t have a dog, and am happily married to a woman with a clean bill of health. I also have no complaints about TC, so I guess I’ll have to buy a ticket if I really want to go.
Criticism Of Arrington’s Prejudice Against My Religion
[to see embedded links: http://feeds.geek.us-freak.us/.....udice.html
I am a cultist and I am a firm believer in the benevolent omnipotence that is Google.
And you, Mr. Arrington, have a deep sated dislike for my most favored Deity. You take every opportunity to slander Google, rather than use constructive criticism to quell your doubts and lack of faith in Our Fearless and Glorious Leader.
Time and time again, your posts at the TechCrunch blog are full of smatterings of antagonistic persecution of my exalted Google. I have many times listened to the venomous sarcasm within your voice during the multitude of podcasts you have guest-appeared on, when the topic of Google was at hand. It is clear to any of devotee of TechCrunch, that you have it out against Google. (By all means dear readers, please comment with your support of my observation). Do you not know that skewing your reports with your obvious disdain and vexation of Google only discredits your integrity as trustful source of valid information?
Not that I have my own trials of faith with my Lord and Savior, Google.
My first tribulation was my being featured on an official Google blog and then having the fore-mentioned content was taken down by Google shortly afterwards. Another test of my faith, was my recent experience with a Enterprise Google Apps support rep. I called for help with an unusual configuration of my MX/DNS records. I emailed a screen shot. It took him 6 days to respond back with a canned response that wasn't any help. (mind that I emailed this to the rep while still on the phone.) Several calls back and forth between Godaddy and GAFYD support, each blaming the other... this was also a major test of loyalty for me.
However, it seems that fear, avarice, and jealousy must rule your heart rather than any true negative experience in being in the warm embrace that is Google.
Oh, why must you be so vile against an entity that promises to bear no evil against you?
After some much needed sleep, I will follow up with some actual examples of your subjective and hurtful posts against Google on TechCrunch. Perhaps I will pick the worse one so that I may qualify your challenge. (and I dare say... edit this original post without indicating that I made changes?!?)
For now I bid you peace, for the use of reflection and to repent your wicked Anti-Google ways.
Louis M. Privette III
lieumorrison@gmail.com
};]
[Cross-posted at Livejournal and Geek.us-Freak.us]
Darn that bracket…
http://feeds.geek.us-freak.us/.....udice.html
You wrote a glowing review of Adobe Apollo on March 18th. That kind of ticked me off, so I wrote 2 anti-glowing reviews of Apollo. These are the links:
“Adobe Apollo doesn’t quite cut it”
http://www.varunmathur.net/?p=24
“Been thinking more about Apollo”
http://www.varunmathur.net/?p=25
mikee…
gotta hand it to you.. you might be a shill in the ranks of the late/great pt barnum….
i can imagine your thought process..
“…. hmmmm got some passes… didn’t really cost me anything… need a way to kick up my site traffic numbers…. BINGO!! got it… i’ll offer the tix to the group members… provided they go back through old posts… yeah!!
this’ll get plenty of morons (i mean people) to go read old articles.. hell, my traffic should spike like the traffic of a cheap whore giving discounts in palo alto!!
and all for letting them write a simple article!!!
damm i’m good!”"
you go boy!!
gotta give props when pros are due!
peace
Huh - my trackback isn’t showing up here. So here’s my post:
http://techfold.com/2007/04/05.....orst-post/
enjoy!
NING 1.0 SUCKED!
Have you just been suckered by Mr. Arrington?
Cast your vote today at:
http://blog.culliss.com/?p=7
I’d go through the trashing, but I already have my pass to the expo. Therefore, some tech geek — here’s an idea for a post to trash. Honestly, I am most proud of this post’s title — out of any title I ever came up with for one of my posts… but I got burned by not diving into the facts of the story; instead I just took Business 2.0’s “word” and it was wrong. Then I felt the wrath of the TC commenting vampires — waiting to suck on my post like a pack of wolves. http://www.techcrunch.com/2006.....e-and-ibm/