Three weeks ago we noted that blog news engine TailRank was looking like a ghost town: No new news was showing on the site, and people noted that the Technology section had been a blank for weeks. Founder Kevin Burton was outraged, said our post bordered on “complete journalistic incompetence,” demanded an “apology and a retraction” and promised big news within a week.
That week has come and gone, as have two additional ones. No news. And today the top story on TailRank is a viagra spam post. The second headline story is a porn spam post. Below that are real stories but they’re months old. This is from the site that was “designed with spam prevention in mind.”
There’s absolutely nothing in the technology section.
Should TailRank be added to the TechCrunch DeadPool or, as Burton commented on our last post, is it at “healthiest point we’ve EVER been as a company?” You decide below.
It gets worse- the #2 top story is “Dick in a Pussy”, which when clicked, attempts to install a very nasty piece of spyware hosted on a hijacked .edu domain.
Clearly, someone has figured out how to spam TailRank very easily.
How about the second post?
” Dick In A P—–”unbelievable! These guys are definitely dead! Burton needs to get a job…if he can.
I wonder how many blog posts on the net are “Untitled”…
This is Tailrank’s tag line:
We track the hottest news in the blogosphere!
I guess they have redefined what is hot in the blogosphere
Considering how angry Burton got about the last post, I now feel really sorry for him… Not even the boost in traffic from TechCrunch could save him…
Just let this one die already. I want to hear about viable startups, not dead ones.
Perhaps you need to add NSFW to the Tailrank link…no pictures but the language is certainly interesting, I’d provide examples but I think TC is still a PG rated site
What do you expect? Look at the Tailrank team:
Burton - Rojo (bomb)
Johnson - Ookles (never launched)
Kalsey - Tagyu (dead link)
I hope he didn’t take any money from investors…
Duncan, I think you blew that PG rating with a couple of your recent posts.
Ookles! I forgot all about them. I really liked their demo…
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006.....arly-2007/
I’d agree that I’d like to hear more about new startups, but it might be interesting to understand what caused TailRank to fail….we might as well learn from the mistakes. Any insights on this from those in the know?
I reread the July 2nd responses by Kevin Burton. Today is July 22nd, and the content on the site is not only irrelevant, but just plain offensive. I’ve never met Kevin Burton, but his responses were defensive and without credibility. He mentions in one of his responses that he is healthy and he is hiring.
Recruiters beware!
http://www.animationlibrary.co....._on_ropes/
@allison Adam Kalsey went on to create FeedCrier that was recently acquired by IMified: http://feedcrier.com/content/2007/05/14/acquired/
Scott Johnson was previously a founder of Feedster which, while not a rising star now, was at the time that he left.
These guys are experienced valley veterans. Not everyone wins with every company they start.
http://ffitz.com/ff/main/children/kevin.htm
Why do WE have to decide? You decide!
anyway, it is clearly dead as deja.com
Typical web2.0 site - thrown together quickly, runs on auto-pilot, contributes nothing, just shuffles the deck-chairs on the titanic around some more each day.
Sean (#13) (or Johnson/Kalsey). Get real. It’s on record that Johnson was fired and I’d hardly consider an Imified acquisition anything to sing about. In addition, Johnson was not a “valley guy”. Face it, Burton surrounded himself with incompetence, and we are seeing the results.
The Porn and Viagra spam on the site is actually the best thing it has ever offered me. I’d say it is “Healthy.”
Tail-who?
deadpool makes sense, this was a me-too company that didn’t execute. If you’re going to be a me-too company, your only hope is to execute flawlessly.
just the MA v, Ducan made clicking thru worth it.
We wub you guys.
I’ve never seen a comment thread on the Internets that didn’t have Kevin as one of the first 20 commenters…
Dear all,
My son Kevin came home last night with a bucket full of apologies from techcrunch readers. Apparently he had collected them from that “You owe me and all your readers an apology and a retraction” comment a few days ago. Since he clearly doesn’t deserve them I’m returning these here to the Techcrunch community (Note to Mike A, could you please hand out these apologies back for me?). Kevin’s dad is furious at him and has been lecturing him all morning long on how to act like an adult. Seems to me those comments from a few days ago were posted by a teenager. Have a nice day boys.
xoxo,
Kevin’s mom.
I don’t understand this comment: “It gets worse- the #2 top story is “Dick in a Pussy”, which when clicked, attempts to install a very nasty piece of spyware hosted on a hijacked .edu domain.”
I went to the DiaP website and all it did was hijack my browser and try to convince me to download a .exe file. Given that .exe files don’t run on my PC, I don’t understand “attempts to install”. It did nothing of the sort.
Kevin was too busy doing interviews:
http://techwag.com/index.php/2.....in-burton/
definitely a deadpool case. I wonder if anybody is even using that API. What makes this so funny is that he lashed out at you last time you posted and demanded an apology - I wonder if he will now apologies for that!
not even viagra can revive that tail - it’s limp beyond repair
On his blog he calls out Google/Blogger about the spam on their blogs/sites…
Irony?
http://feedblog.org/2007/07/16.....sploggers/
@Dave: great point! makes the site perfectly ok to appear in a news aggregator
I noticed something funny with tailrank a week or so ago when I was no longer getting the the links on or in from tailrank and then last night I clicked to open my firefox favorites and I had several porn listings in my live feed???
Whats up?
Had/Has potential.
I had to delete tailrank for now, we’ll see.
Kevin’s mom,
Please don’t be too hard on Kevin. Grounding him for two days should be enough.
Come to think of it, he never comes out of his room anyway.
Fake Kevin
I’m not really a TailRank reader, but seeing the two offensive news still sitting on its main page without no one moderating it even after you have alerted this issue hours ago really proves one thing -> it’s dead! So I voted the DeadPool..
@Dave Barnes: On a Windows machine, the download will actually ask if we really want to just download it or straight away “Run” the executable file. So yes, it is an “attempt to install” thingy
HAHA.. he obviously doesn’t even read his own site because Tailrank has been like this for WEEKS
Kevin must read Techmeme!
he sure does know how to talk the talk though! he was always all over the web talking up tailrank
Maybe a special category ‘hiberpool’ or something like that should be created for TailRank before moving it to deadpoo.l
I can’t wait to hear what his excuse is this time. I think most people knew that TR was dead months ago.
@fake kevin
>he never comes out of his room anyway
Perhaps he’s still in the closet
Either that or bussy playing world of warcraft.
Previously I just thought that Techcrunch and Valeywag had it in for Kevin and Tailrank, but after seeing this it is clear that all the criticisms were justified
C’mon, at least things come in the right order: first the Viagra, then D*** in P***
Ha ha ha that post will teach a website owner to speak in unfriendly ways to the owners of the blog with high traffic!
To call it dead means it was once alive. This project has been a stillborn since day one. Kevin has been cranking the wheel, but the hamster has always been dead. Ok, no more death metaphors. Kevin, stop reading this, hang on to your ego, and get a job already!
Actually you’re right. We did get hit by a spam attack. There’s a spammer hitting .edu domains and using blogs as gateways to boost their pagerank and drive traffic to their site.
The problem is fixed now and the broken sites are blocked until we can track down the source.
Compare the amount of spam on Digg and Reddit vs Tailrank you’ll find us to be far superior.
Yes. Tailrank was “designed with spam prevention in mind.” If Techcrunch was designed with ’spam prevention in mind’ I’m sure you’d have 90% less content
Regarding our release schedule. We’re releasing when the software is complete and not when Techcrunch needs news because it’s down on pageviews.
Thanks Kevin. I’ll ping you the next time the site is broken so you can fix it again.
Oh, and the top news story is 61 days old.
Kevin: tech is still empty and has been forever. and if being on an .edu domain is all it takes to get around your ’spam filter’ and be ranked as the #1 story, then I would say that you don’t actually have spam filter. I also doubt that spammers were targeting tailrank - since you don’t even read your own site.
you talk too much for a guy who can’t keep his site running, yet likes to boast about it.
in short, you are completely full of shit and most people know that now
NAUTANKI ….
In case any of you are wondering, Kevin is also an asshole in person. This is not some online persona thing.
Dead and buried. Peace.
“Thanks Kevin. I’ll ping you the next time the site is broken so you can fix it again. Oh, and the top news story is 61 days old.”
Match Point: Arrington drives Burton back to the baseline with a powerful forehand, Burton runs for the ball with everything he’s got and manages a last ditch effort lob that seems to come down with the same lack of force it went up with………………………… it takes its time coming down……….. Arrington, not content with simply ending the match achieves a nearly 1 foot vertical leap as he comes down with a thundering overhead slam and loud grunt that not only wins him a decisive victory and breaks his strings, but leaves the crowd wondering how a man with his body was able to get 1 inch off the ground, let alone 12 inches……
NKB - I actually like Kevin in person. He’s just handling this whole situation very poorly in my opinion. I’m sure we’ll still be friends.
Trace - dude, I could almost dunk in college.
@Michael Arrington …. why do you think I’m handling it poorly? You realize I was joking in my reply right? Hence the …
Seriously. You can say whatever you want. I love my job. We’re working on some awesome stuff… Life (and work) couldn’t be better.
Kevin
Work COULD be better. You could be digg!
Kevin
Saying you handle this better than Digg has got to be one of the worst comparisons I’ve ever read: I’ve never, ever seen these sorts of headlines on Digg, and then you’ve got all the sites linking in as well to boot so it’s not just the one or two exposed links on Tailrank, it was a pile of them. You cheapen your defense when you make silly inaccurate comparisons like this, by all means engage on the issue, but take a deep breath before saying you’re better than Digg on Spam.