Technorati CEO: Techmeme is “a great little site.”

WUME

As Marshall noted on Twitter - it wasn’t that great of an interview. Personally I would have rather heard, “we are going to fix the tracking, authority, and customer service issues we have first” - for example… I sent an email to them last week and their auto reply included the following:

“If you don’t hear back from anyone within a week, please accept our apologies for the delay as we may be experiencing a backlog in Support. Please feel free to send us a reminder of your ticket.”

If we don’t do our job, just keep tapping us to get us to move. Technorati’s authority ranking might actually be worse today than using Alexa to validate a site.

Allen - what does WUME mean? I’m obviously not with it.

“wholly unique media experience,”

you said it sounded like marketing lingo so I gave you the abbreviation they use in the pr firm

so attempts to create a wholly unique media experience are so common that the term has an acronym? God we need a downturn. If Kevin Rose ever says he wants to create a WUME, I’m quitting.

Ha ha, this thread is like one of those on a blog - a WUBE!

Mike,

Wow. You really jumped on that/me! First, I must state categorically that when I said that — and you obviously can’t hear the intonation — I stated my admiration for Techmeme genuinely, and in direct response to a question about Techmeme. I truly like the site, and I liked it before I joined Technorati. That said, I see how in print that my admiration gets taken out of context. All I was trying to point out is that our sites and businesses are different — not better or worse, but just different. Anyway, I’d love to meet you in person, so that you’d understand exactly my perspective, and realize I’m not the kind of guy who belittles anyone’s significant accomplishments. Please feel free to drop me a line. best, richard

I don’t think Richard really said anything wrong.

The bigger issue is that Technorati is, categorically, not a great little site. It’s a big, bloated mess that ceased to be functional for its core audience years ago.

By your own admission, it *is* a little site being run by one guy. Everything else he said in that quote seemed like a complement to me. Your personal opinion of Technorati seems to be coloring your comments to the negative without much to back it up.

Looks like a very harsh commentary. If taken out of context I can see that it can be construed as a negative comment against techmeme but reading the subsequent lines, I don’t think that was his intention. I agree with the rest of the commentary on not having a clear view of what he is going to focus on next for Technorati.

Richard,

I can’t argue over your intended meaning, just what I interpreted your response to mean. Techmeme may be “little” in terms of page views but it has major influence over what bloggers and mainstream journalists write about. Find me a technology writer who doesn’t visit it multiple times a day and I’d be very surprised.

I also think the doublespeak in the last paragraph isn’t the right approach. I’m betting it comes from media training at big companies (I know because I’ve been through media training multiple times), but it just doesn’t communicate anything at all. Technorati has a reputation for being overly secretive, so perhaps I’m more sensitive to it than I would be otherwise.

Dave Sifry invited me in to the Technorati offices a year ago, without saying what the meeting was about. I showed up with a student intern and a camera. They were not happy I didn’t come alone, asked us both to sign NDAs (we didn’t) and asked us not to take any pictures while we were there. That just isn’t a community-building way of doing things, and I hope you throw out all of those policies.

Anyway, if you really feel the way you do in your comment above, then Technorati hired the right guy and I apologize for my misinterpretation. Thanks for the comment.

Hmmm - if you look at our historical coverage of Technorati, it went from very positive to, over time, very negative. At some point the company just sort of derailed. Huge 180 degree strategic changes without any explanation. Key employees bailing out. SEO tricks that drove traffic way up, and they were boasting about it. So my opinion is colored by my experiencing all of that.

http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/technorati

Still, as I say above, perhaps I misinterpreted Richard’s comments. I am more than happy to give them the benefit of the doubt, and will gladly support them if they do a couple of things to earn that support.

Sorry Mike, I don’t see a problem with the interview. But to me, it seems you are starting to lose your objectivity in reporting some of these stories. Your personal affiliations and opinions are overly influencing what you say to the point that sometimes, what you have written is unfair or just plain wrong (I am remember the whole “red face racist” incident in particular). This seems to be more frequent these days.

I’m not suggesting you lose your opinion, after all this is what makes reporting interesting, but keeping it balanced. Btw, I love the site and I’m a long time reader.

“…here’s a juicy rumor that’s been floating around… In late 2005 Technorati may have turned down a $90 million acquisition offer, demanding $150 million instead…”

MA, why stop there?? I’m obviously not with it either. Who was the potential buyer? Go ahead, it’s okay. We won’t tell.

John - you really think the payperpost red face video was a reasonable thing to do? Perhaps we just have different opinons on things. I never strive to be balanced. I just strive to be correct. When it turns out that I’m wrong, I admit it (see my Ning R.I.P. follow ups).

MA is giving two big thumbs down to Technorati.

MA,

I have been following Tech Cruch for quite long. From what I read in the quotes, I too would like to voice the opinion that we should not dig too deep into what Richard’s statements.

But that is just my opinion, of course.

I believe this post is a repeat, or may be I read it on some other site.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

Making a big story out of a small comment has already happened several times in Techcrunch, but I must say that it brings up interesting discussions such as the one above.

Technically, Techmeme is little, in terms of it having only four “pages”: the front page, the river, the archives, and now the leaderboard. That’s not a criticism by any means.

This company is a dog and there is absolutely no business model. And this guy is not equipped to build a business. He has zero track record. This was always a bubble company.

Mike, I thought the “red face” video by payperpost was incredibly stupid, in fact so stupid it speaks for itself. The part I didn’t agree with was the fact that you went so far as to suggest they were acting in a racist manner by linking an article that was not directly related to the incident to reinforce your statement. I know you were careful with your words and did not go so far as to “call” them racist, but you certainly insinuated it (I’m sure you were a great lawyer). But this is where I feel you crossed a line by going just a little too far with pushing the hot buttons. It just felt like a cheap shot, and claims of racism are not something to be thrown around lightly. For the record, I don’t even like those guys or their business.

I like it too!
We agreed? WOW!

Michael, given the amount of coverage you’ve been giving TechMeme, along with some bullish comments about it over it’s rivals… I hope you don’t mind me asking whether I can confirm you hold no financial interest (or otherwise) in the company?

I know that Gabe, who’s a mutual friend, was previously a tenant/similar of yours at the ‘TechCrunch Ranch’ which is why I ask. It would be really useful, I think, just to get your position confirmed.

Thanks

Simon, I presume you’re referring to Technorati, not to TechMeme or TechCrunch?

sick-em michael

@Ben Metcalfe,
since he said “which has a single employee, never raised capital”, I highly doubt, that he has some sort of financial interest in the company.

Besides that, I’m not a huge fan of Technorati either, but that’s mostly because they are not indexing my site correctly

Ben - all of my ownership positions are listed on our about page. As much as I would like to own part of (or all of) Techmeme, I have no financial interest in the company. I think Gabe kicks ass though, and he has occasionally dogsat for Laguna, but not recently.

My problem with technorati is innovation. They had a nice service that fulfilled a need when blogs were first getting popular, since they were the first good service they became popular. Then, they never really changed anything except the occasional page layout, but nothing that adds value.

Like you said, the main reason their service is lacking is because anyone can just do a regular google search and expect to see blog posts on the first page. This dilutes the need for specialized blog search tools and unless they add more services/features their site will suffer. Everyone knows this and that is why they are not being bought.

@Michael

Hey, thanks for confirming. I won’t hold dog sitting as a benefit in kind! J

Richard did nothing to belittle Techmeme and he only is kissing up to you now because of your influence.

John is 100% right about you often appearing to lose your objectivity. It actually seems like several posts on this site are editorial opinions rather than good objective journalism.

What is this site intended to be? A good place to get well founded articles on Web technology companies or a place for you and your other writers to air your opinions?

How about setting expectations for your readers and your company!

fred - I addressed this in #14 above.

It actually seems like several posts on this site are editorial opinions rather than good objective journalism.

What is this site intended to be? A good place to get well founded articles on Web technology companies or a place for you and your other writers to air your opinions?

well, it’s a blog. it’s a mixture of opinion and fact. If I get the facts wrong I correct them. Opinions are, well, opinions. If the site doesn’t resonate with you, there are lots and lots of other places to go.

WRT whether or not Richard belittled techmeme, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion. You should go write a blog with those opinions.

Andrew, Tech Meme and Technorati have weak business models. Tech Crunch is just an overblown message board.

This is why I do interviews by email

Still, I agree with Mike that Technorati lost it. I even remember telling people about Technorati when I first got interested in blogging. What happened?

Word got out that Google gave better rank to blogs, remember that SEO contest for the gibberish word? The guy that won simply used a blog. So blogs ranked better in the main SERPs, and they added the blog search. Plus now you got Techmeme, Digg, and I’m sure even Netscape’s front page distracted people from Technorati.

Then Technorati came out with a “cool” rounded-corners homepage with reading recommendations, I didn’t like the recommendations. And no matter how many times you try, you will never be my “homepage”. Like most sane people I prefer a blank screen when I open my browser.

They had a feature that showed who was linking to your blog, which was cool at first, until the Wordpress dashboard (by default) listed recent inbound links.

public function techcrunchpost($author = ‘Michael Arrington’)
{
$this->post->get_inflammatory_opinion($author);
$this->comments->glib_damage_control();
$this->post->do_body_update(false);
}

yongfook: indent those curly braces NOW, mister! You just opened up a world of pain.

Looks like that WP dashboard list is pulled from Technorati, I never noticed until just now

Wow, finally a CEO that is willing to say what he wants

Am I the only one who wonders if technorati actually works?? Richard, if you’re reading this thread, note that the consistent take among people I know is that the fundamental tech is not being maintained; too many times sites come up with no link, with links that stop at 48 hours old etc. etc. Does Technorati Mobile work yet?

If I had been handed the problem, I’d say that job #1 is to make the core site functionality - function. We need a good blog indexing tool that isn’t Google, and we need the link and network maps that something like Technorati can provide. I wish them well,and hope they can get their heads screwed on and deliver.

Marc D.

MA … opinions are good. Keep them coming. As you said, after all it is a blog. I support you even when I do not agree.

Sorry .. no comments on either of these companies from me

Thx for the dogsitting disclosure statement, which I assume has been signed by you, Gabe, and Laguna the Wonder Dog. I’m a huge fan of Techmeme, but I bet Gabe would agree that the scale vs Technorati makes these projects very different. That’s part of the appeal of TechMeme - it’s created a very web savvy tech community.
*
The smart buyer might buy both and find a way to bundle these services, using TechMeme’s clever algorithm to rank *all* the technoratic blogs in various ways.
*
Mike maybe that’s part of what you can do with the $100,000,000.00 that Bill Blodget’s going to pony up for TechCrunch….

Dude… you sound like a jilted lover…

“Dave Sifry invited me in to the Technorati offices a year ago, without saying what the meeting was about. I showed up with a student intern and a camera. They were not happy I didn’t come alone, asked us both to sign NDAs (we didn’t) and asked us not to take any pictures while we were there.”

… and you sound like a guy who holds a healthy grudge. Is this really the best / healthiest way to wield the power of the pen?

You guys are #1 on the linked list, no wonder you think that.

Guys, you’re not going to believe this. I just heard that Hulu is offering their employees free bagels for breakfast. Will their blatant ripoffs of Google never cease?! Michael, I’m sure you are as outraged as I am.

“We’re really centered on trying to create a wholly unique media experience and improving our properties. Our big thing is going to be working on the advertising side of things to connect brands to the idea of global conversation that we strive for.”

Ye Gads…..

I have always found Technorati to be worthless. The search results are a joke.

Techmeme may be “little” in terms of page views but it has major influence over what bloggers and mainstream journalists write about.

That would be in the US/UK, in the rest of the world (at least Spanish), TechMeme has no presence.

We novices are very happy with technorati since we will never be featured on techmeme

Come to think of it there are plenty of “bloggers/people” searching for really novice stuff so there must be novice blogs to cater them right ?

Tech For Novices

Mike - I didn’t read any “belittling” going on here. I’m with others above who think your bias for a friend is showing here. Techmeme for all its strengths doesn’t compete against Technorati — at least in scope. Technorati is much more broad. Perhaps that is its weakness because it tries to be the google of feeds and consistently fails due to scaling woes mostly.

This takes nothing away from Techmeme, but I think even Gabe would be hardpressed to seriously compare the two services. That’s not belittling, that’s a fact.

And please start using a different picture of Richard Jalichandra. Dude looks like he spent too much time baking at a tanning salon with one of those fake yuppie tans.

Techmeme rocks all the way.

What??? TechMeme has a single employee and has never taken VC? Why not? How come? What gives? What happen? Is the founder a card-carrying liberal or something? I don’t get it, please explain, TechCrunch knows this kind of stuff.

I don’t want to have a hugely successful site (like TechMeme) and still be doing all this stuff myself. I want grunts. I want account executives. I want a 36D receptionist.

Technorati, are you guys reading????

When a user clicks on your blog to add you as a favorite, and they have not yet signed up. They should be prompted to sign up, BUT,

BUT,

BUTTTTTT,,

Your blog should be auto-added on their favorites list immediately after sign up.
As it is now they have to sign up, then they have to GO BACK TO YOUR BLOG, and re-press the add to favorites button in order to add the blog.

That is RETARDED. Please fix this, that is a bug in anybody’s book.
Thanks!

By sign up, I mean when they click on the add blog to “technorati favorites” but have not yet signed up to Technorati. Your blog should be auto-added to their technorati favorites. Right now they have to jump through a billion loops to go back to your blog to click the button after having signed up on Technorati, when all they wanted to do is add a blog on their favorites list.

Mike,

Techcrunch is a great little site and there are a lot of cool things on here

…..

Personally, I would have been happy had Richard said that their company’s main focus was on to stop their technorati ghost from escaping too often..

maybe Richard can sit for your dog and confirm next time you jump Mike. Something does not sit right with me when you don’t verify before the post. If you have had “media” training then revisit it. You are not being balanced. “It’s a blog” does not license you to poor research. I like TechCrunch for the news on tech and insightful opinions not this mike, not this.

Media Publishing Strategy Loop:

1. Manufacture controversy to generate interest and readers
2. Hide behind the blurred line of “opinion” or “reporting”
3. If criticized, 1st response is to defend, 2nd is to backtrack a little
4. Smile all the way to the bank
5. Goto #1

I love Techmeme, and its sister site WeSmirch, and it has nothing to do with Gabe, though I know and like Gabe as well. I just enjoy having a quick look at what everybody’s talking about and I do visit both sites daily, sometimes more than once, to what’s going on. I also visit Google News.

I can recall a time where Technorati had the top spot in the market but it didn’t fare well thereafter - I think it seemed that they didn’t have the ability to cope with or maximize their growth and now they’re at the disadvantage. I can recall when it was really common that it came up among publicity clients back in the day. Nobody - and I’m not just saying it - brings it up at all anymore. They talk about Techmeme.

So, if Techmeme is a “nice little site”, I wouldn’t be surprised if it weren’t a “big pain in the ass” for technorati.

Mike:

So, you were probably one of those kids who took his ball and went home when you could not be quarterback. But, then again, you probably were also the kid who would not have been invited in the first place unless you had the ball.

Your readers define your company’s value and I am quite confident that you pitch techcrunch as a foremost source of information for a large number of influential readers in the technology world. Readers that in large part have got to expect objective stories with opinions not stated as fact.

Keep up the biased reporting and disregard for your readers and I and many others will certainly move to a credible source who understands the importance of journalistic integrity.

Please refrain from your commonly used method of dealing with dissenting opinions by classifying them as SPAM and deleting them.

@ sputnick, taking VC is not an intelligent expansion plan and shouldn’t - emphasize “shouldn’t” - be taken unless you need it. Entrepreneurship 101. VC sounds sexy, it sounds so fantastic - it’s not. You should only raise if you have to - Techmeme is actually pretty solid if it hasn’t needed to.

those sound like yahoo sound bites. does anyone else cringe when they hear sites referred to as “properties”?

@ jackamo, most of the engineers i know in telecom and internet call sites properties. it’s just sort of the term. or, platforms.

it just sort of comes out of my mouth without thinking because of this, when I say it. it’s probably the same here.

MA: you should avoid condescendingly criticizing the new CEO’s “media training” when you obviously lack any journalistic training yourself. You might want to find some better “intern”s to do your research. If i didn’t know better i’d say you have CEO envy.

EVERYONE ON TECHCRUNCH: it should be obvious by now that MA has a vendetta against Technorati, and you are right to question if he is being given incentives by Techmeme and other rivals. MA actually misquotes data, or purposely uses old data to slam Technorati, which is still, objectively in terms of data quality and quantity (though not speed), better than Google.

Objectivity? What is that, the viewpoint of a robot?

If you are alive, you have an opinion. If you have an opinion, then you are biased.

Hence the reason why blogs and editorials are popular, and the media is fading in their vain attempts at being “objective.”

Darnel: Famous words from a Mikey wannabe. Good journalism requires research, validation and objectivity for crafting interesting stories about breaking news. Other than your mom or some lonely dorks, who really gives a %$#@ about reading a blog used as a soapbox for spewing personal and biased opinions?

I think technocrati is better, more fun to use and slicker compared to techmeme. But hopefully, Richard Jalichandra doesn’t get over confident and loose it!

Technorati is still pretty widely used and has some potential…though I agree it has been flagging recently.

Its great to see the massive discussion develop in the comments about such opinion pieces. Perhaps Technorati should be looking at that. Often comments are at least as valuable as the post itself. Would be nice if it was possible to structure them, and sort of show results of a reader poll, eg “87% of readers agree with Mike’s opinion on this”.

Technorati is a great company, I believe they’ve stayed focused and executed well, the site is a pleasure to use. The trouble is that their sharp focus on blog search put them in direct competition with Google. And now that the new WordPress release (2.3) has switched from Technorati to Google (for tracking backlinks) they must really be in a tough situation.

Admittedly beating Google in the blog search game is very tough. As a vertical search engine, Technorati must focus on what makes blog seach different from normal search. The timeline, authority, spam, discussions / comments, personalisation, and cluster results by opinions (at least positive / negative) and topics. When I search for “web 2.0″ on Technorati I don’t just want the latest blog posts featuring the keyword. I want a timeline of popularity, people and sources that are authorities on the subject, popular opinions and how they change over time. I want a geographic view of where it’s happening and where it began. I want to know the topics that are correlated, companies and people that are often cited. I want to see famous quotes on the subject. I want to track certain subjects over time and discussions on specific posts.

It’s a tough problem, sure. But that’s what will make Technorati stand out from Google blog search.

I understand that being loud-mouthed and opinionated is what gets you noticed in the blogosphere, but this author is ridiculous. I’ve only been here once and I won’t come back. Maybe next time you can try taking a serious tone to the conversation and stating your opinions reasonably - instead of sounding like a drunken fanboi.

Oh wait, now I see why the author is so vehement. Look at the #1 source of news for Techmeme:
http://www.techmeme.com/lb

None other than TechCrunch!

I read TechCrunch because of its timely reporting of interesting Web 2.0 and other new startups/technologies. I do not come here to read TC writers harshly bashing other companies they don’t like.

TC became wildly popular and influential not because of the opinionate bashing of other companies. It became popular because of its timely and mostly unbiased reporting. Frankly speaking, we all have our own brains and don’t really need your thinking/judging for us. Forget that little secret of success may quickly turn people off and lead to demise of the beloved blog/news site. Please consider this friendly advice.