Frankly, since I started writing my weekly column for TechCrunch a few months back, I’ve been growing increasingly worried about the sanity of our readers. And not just for the reasons you might think.
Under a growing list of bylines, more than 200 posts are published on TechCrunch.com each week – with countless more on the various spin-off Crunch sites. Even allowing for MG Siegler’s eight personalities, and the fact he hasn’t slept since the day Twitter launched, that’s still an enormous amount of content for one blog to produce.
Consuming every single word that appears on TechCrunch is a fool’s errand, and yet we know some of you try to do exactly that. We know this because, even when you find a post that doesn’t interest you, you still take the time to let us know rather than simply moving on to something else. “Too long; didn’t read” you say, helpfully.
Knowing how keen you are not to miss anything good, but worried that our ever-increasing output is going to turn you crazy, I took Arrington aside after our weekly game of beer pong to suggest a solution. Why don’t I compile a weekly ‘Best Of TechCrunch’, rounding up the most important, informative and entertaining content from the preceding seven days?
“Ok,” said Mike, “let’s try it.” And so here we go – your handy guide to the best of the past seven days of TechCrunch, starting with our…
- Fight of the week: Michael Arrington vs Social Gaming Scammers
The problem when Mike gets a bee in his bonnet about something is that – with the obvious exception of that handshaking nonsense – he’s usually right. And so it is with his current obsession: how social gaming companies are making millions of dollars in revenue through ethically-murky lead-generation offers. Or, as he put it..“For any particular offer, ask yourself if anyone would buy the product or service if the terms were clearly spelled out for them, and they weren’t being bribed with in-game currency…. Most of these offers are bad for consumers because it confusingly gets them to pay far more for in-game currency than if they just paid cash.”
Eager to hear the industry’s response, Mike stopped by the Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco and challenged Offerpal CEO Anu Shukla (whose company provides a platform for feeding these offers to game developers) to justify her business. He didn’t mince his words, calling Offerpal ‘the bad guys’. Shukla responded in kind, calling the allegations ’shit, doubleshit and bullshit’. The crowd – mainly social game developers – applauded wildly in support of Shukla. That’ll teach Arrington to call people names! Except for one small detail: he’s right.
Responding to Arrinton’s post on the issue, Hot Or Not’s James Hong and Plenty Of Fish’s Markus Frind explained how they had both tried making money through lead-gen offers before realising that- in Hong’s words – “In a nutshell, the offers that monetize the best are the ones that scam/trick users.” Even ex-scammers have come out of the woodwork, with Dennis Yu from advertising agency Blitz Local admitting that he made a fortune from scamming Facebook users on behalf of social gaming clients. Of course, there’s something in Yu’s Damascene conversion that reminds me of the Onion’s ‘Ex-Pedophile Shares Tips On How To Make Your Kids Less Attractive‘, especially as his contrition doesn’t stretch to actually giving back any of the money he made from scams. But, between his testimony and last night’s admission by Zynga’s Andrew Trader that 1/3 of their revenue comes from lead-gen, Shukla’s sweary defence of Offerpal and their ilk is starting to sound a lot like.. well… whatever amount of shit comes after doubleshit and bullshit.
- Pun-packed headline of the week: Tonight, You Too Can Watch U2 On YouTube
You can always rely on MG to bring the funny to TechCrunch headlines, but this week’s livestreamed U2 / Youtube concert gave him a special chance to shine. You Too, U2, YouTube? Brilliant! The actual story was interesting too: not only was the concert a huge success – with over 10 million streams served – but it also kicked off a week of fun for music lovers, including a Foo Fighters gig on Facebook and the launch of Google’s Music Onebox (the latter covered by Jason Kincaid). Onebox is an undisputed win for fans, as it allows fans to stream music live from Google search results, courtesy of LaLa and iLike/MySpace music. But as Arrington points out, it’s also a reminder to Ticketmaster of their epic fail in not acquiring iLike when they had the chance. Cue the violins.
- Autoerotica of the week: Lacy’s Chinese takeaways
As part of the research for her forthcoming book, Editor at Large Sarah Lacy was in China, where she met two entrepreneurs with very different – but equally hands-on – approaches to the pursuit of happiness in the digital age. First came Song Li, the founder of Zhenai.com. It’s easy to dismiss Zhenai as a Chinese rip off of Match.com, but as Sarah explains, Li has actually taken the Western idea of an online dating service and completely retooled it for a Chinese audience. It’s a must-read post, if only for the oddly precise statistics about what each gender finds sexy, and how love-starved singles can improve their chances…. And speaking of taking intimate matters into one’s own hands: Sarah then met Brian Sloan, a Chicago native who moved to China after an unfortunate incident involving a pot of human skulls and a pupeteer called JoJo Baby. Once there, he earned the nickname ‘The Kinky King of Beijing’, partly thanks to his invention: The Auto Blow. Sarah was too coy to spell out what the device did, but let’s not beat about the bush here: it’s an automatic blow job machine. And if that’s not enough to make you read the post - which also, by the way, makes some really interesting points about the deconstructed supply chain – then frankly nothing will.
- Lovely new phone of the week: The Droid you are looking for
Over on MobileCrunch, Greg Kumparak got excited about the arrival of Motorola’s Droid phone. After pitting the device against his iPhone 3GS in a series of tests, Greg concludes that – well, I won’t spoil it – but the Droid is certainly one hell of a phone. But what’s really interesting is that it’s also the first handset with Android 2.0, allowing it to run Google’s astonishing new GPS navigation app. Imagine taking the ease of use of Google Maps – plain English search, always-on connectivity, traffic view – and coupling it with the best in-car GPS tool you’ve ever seen, and then multiply that by 100. For free. That’s what Google Maps Navigation is. It’s no wonder that rivals TomTom and Garmin saw their shares take a plunge on launch day.
- Comments of the week: Speak your brains, win some corporate crap
Much as zoos would be nothing without monkeys, TechCrunch would be nothing without commenters – and it’s about time you people were rewarded. This week, I’ve rummaged through Arrington’s desk and have a pack of MySpace branded playing cards and a limited edition TechCrunch tshirt to give away to my favourite comments. The playing cards go to John Green for being the first to make the week’s most obvious joke: describing the ‘Asian Boobs‘ controversy as ‘a storm in a C cup‘. Kudos, John. The tshirt, meanwhile, goes to the anonymous commenter calling him/herself ‘A Real Social Game Developer‘ for mounting such a dogged defense of Offerpal, despite overwhelming evidence of the company’s indefensibility. Doublekudos, ‘Social Game Developer’ – your prize is on its way, care of the Offerpal office.
And finally…
- Why is this news? of the week: Schwarzenegger Gives CA Legislature A Hidden Finger
Even Arrington admitted that this story had no place on TechCrunch, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful. It seems the Governor of California took time out of his day to hide a delightfully profane message in a letter to members of the California State Assembly. As Mike says: “I wish I had the time to do this kind of thing in my posts here on TechCrunch.”
As do I, Mike, as do I.
I like the idea of a summary of the week but that was too long. Quick blurb and link to original. That is plenty. Thanks
+10
i definitely enjoyed the satirical touch in the summary.. good read.
No no, the length was just ok, if you need quick blurb and link, just use your preferred feed reader. Moreover, Paul just writes long posts, that’s the way it is, and we used to that.
@Paul: Good idea, and it is also useful. Do this every week.
Too long; didn’t read
Damn, you beat me to it.
+1
I really like this idea, Paul. I’ve seen it done on other sites, but mainly about stuff I’m not interested in. I think TC has such a wide variety of content, it’s impossible to catch it all, so this really is helpful.
Strangely enough, I read about the HotorNot guy’s response, but not Arrington’s original post. I also read the Schwarzenegger story, but none of the others. Off for a read now.
Agreed it’s good idea. Given posts that are no longer on the homepage…or where comments peaked 100+…nice to have weekly wrap-up (reminding me to revisit and see where comments left-off…or even if updates to the posts were necessary)
Maybe including opposing sides of commentary to give idea of thoughts of TC readership on these wrap-ups.
Good idea all-in-all.
I think he should do one for every post, and also for every comment.
On the subject of your post being lengthy, I quite like it. I’d never read the U2 story or the Droid one, without a fairly lengthy reason to.
It’s more of an opportunity on your part to sell the stories to me. After all, I must’ve already passed up on reading them via the RSS headline.
Not a bad attempt. A little shorter would be a better wrap up.
Should I only read summaries, or summaries and then click the links to read the whole post? Because those summaries are really long …
Maybe you should start writing summaries in 140 letters and include some pics for easier scanning
“….then multiply that by 100.”
“9/11 times 100? thats 91,100!”
WTF? What did this have to do with anything? I want to call it spam but there’s no link. Oh well.
Sprint is already saving Telenav by offering free GPS to its Simply Everything plan customers. Maybe thats what Garmin and the like should do.
I’m pretty sure that’s a quote from an episode of South Park. Get with it, man! As I (may or may not, depending on if I’m right) have already done…
After actually reading the post, it’s quite good and I like the idea.
It’s cool you do it Paul, because that gives it your (sometimes) take on the posts of the week, but this could also be done by a different TC writer every week.
And who are we kidding, we do read most of the posts here.
I like this idea! Clever write up coupled with witticisms a plenty makes for a good summary. Plus, sub headings make it so that dumb people don’t HAVE to read things they think look too long and can still get everything.
The weekly roundup is a good idea. Some people said it’s a bit lengthy, but hey, it’s a week’s worth of information. I would rather spend time reading one long summary rather than rummaging through all the old posts.
Here’s a suggestion:
In future, for the image accompanying the article, how about having a simple collage of the images used with all the articles you’re covering in the summary.
+1 As much as I love TechCrunch, I don’t have nearly enough time in my day to keep up with it all. I’d rather have the detailed summary.
I like to think that TechCrunch spends
long hours doing countless,
often thankless hours digging for the
very best tech news that
every single reader would be grateful
to read, but the fact of the matter is that
even though many stories are relevant, some
commenters are just
heinous trolls that
couldn’t make a dime in the
real world
under even the most ideal circumstances.
Never mind these fools I say and
continue on with the reporting you fine authors.
Here’s to the finest tech news site on the web!!
+1
And +1 to Paul for the first section. Win!
“I love techcrunch”
got it!
California Governor’s ghostwriter would be proud of ya!
Man, I’m slow. I got your “i love techcrunch” acrostic, but only now I got the “F**ck Offerpal” masterpiece by Mr. Carr in his post.
You da man, Mr. Carr!
For those who’re slow as I am, hint: string together the first letter in each paragraph.
awesome.
damn your slow
You missed the K. Look. Harder.
And – your post is too long. I got so bored reading it I nearly wet myself.
Unless there’s some hidden meaning in “FToctEFfwsws RMbawftEhsttd OYlYsmMfaTv AAwtZerstmitSiws LOptrGMbGt CMcteJAgfcw A WFEiaM A”, you need to take more care with your initialisms.
(On my screen. At my resolution. With my font size. Your mileage will vary)
TC is The NY Daily News to Venturebeat’s NY Times.
If you know what I mean Paul….
Like the idea, but I also think that it needs to be more condensed.
I must say that it really pisses me off when the ADHD-retards (yeah you heard me!) keep chipping in with their ‘too long – didn’t read’ comments. If it’s too long then just f**k off and go play with your twitter (or indeed your penis) for a while and keep your asinine observations to yourself!
Rant over!
Arrington doesn’t shake people’s hands, but he plays beer pong?
Love the weekly round up–nothing like some meta blog-crunching goodness!
“F*** Offerpal”! lol i get it.
At last! A cure for TC addiction!
Can we have RSS of these summaries?
That would help me get back my sanity and start finally working on stuff instead of compulsively reading about it
Great idea, Paul. Like Beni, I would love an RSS feed just for the weekly round-up.
No, that was not the Paul Carr encore i was hoping for.
this is a great idea. i have read all the mentioned posts but is a good thing to read a summary that refreshes my memory
Like the idea, keep it coming!
“The problem when Mike gets a bee in his bonnet about something is that – with the obvious exception of that handshaking nonsense – he’s usually right.”
Hahaha thank god someone there agrees with me. YOURE CRAZY ARRINGTON!
short it up.. do a list without the words
A list without words? So something like:
·
·
·
·
·
That’s what you’d rather read?
Great idea. I agree with above though – maybe keep them a little shorter. Or at least put some paragraphs in!
Can you do a monthly round-up of your weekly round-ups but 10 times longer therefore 10 times better?
Wonderful article, and an excellent idea.
I have nearly driven myself to the edges of sanity attempting to read everything that comes out of techcrunch and its subsidiary blogs.
I’ve had to become much more picky what I choose to read in order to save some time for eating and sleeping. This best of should help a lot, I’m looking forward to the next one
Cheers.
I have to agree that this should have been shorter, although I love your regular articles, as I always feel I need more Paul Carr after I read one.
My compliments to a genuinely original and engaging writer. I just wish there were more like you out there. Keep them coming Paul, I wait with glee for every post.
This comment is suspect of being a Paul Carr plant.
“I just wish there were more like you out there. Keep them coming Paul, I wait with glee for every post.”
It’s an article dude, just an ordinary article. How can you excessively compliment such mediocrity?
Yes, article should have been shorter; also narrower- the width should have been appropriately reduced. If this isn’t remedied in the next two days, I’m calling “doubleshit” on TechCrunch.
Well the title itself is confusing, i thought you are leaving techcrunch and its your last week
Shorter would be better.
Not entirely convinced it’s even needed. But, experimentation is a good thing.
Some of it sounds a little self-serving (”Arrington is usually right, etc.”). Doesn’t really seem like the style we’ve seen from you before, a style I really liked.
Ha. I should clarify. I absolutely am not saying Arrington is usually right in all situations – just when he gets into these fights. He picks his battles well, is all.
Peanut Labs survey reveals Arrington has a point.
Peanutlabs.wordpress.com
Too long… didn’t read.
I like the idea of a list of the top blog posts for the week. What about month?
I don’t understnd ppl who come to TC.. Read the title.. Click on it.. Skim the post.. go to the bottom of the page and write.. “too long.. dint read..”
What exactly do they plan to accomplish?? Who wants to know whether you read the bloody post or not.. Comment when you have something worthwhile.. instead of wasting precious bytes n bandwidth for everyone else..
@Paul.. Excellent post.. I’ll look forward to next week’s roundup..
Great idea for a regular feature. Paul Car is actually now “The Readers’ Editor”
(BTW, feel free to pick from other TC network sites, hint hint)
Great article. Keep up the good work! I try to read everything as always
haha:
Thats the gems there
Still too long – and you STILL missed the final “K”. Or don’t you damn yankees spell it with a “K”?
I like a good yank in the morning…
I like the idea of having weekly round up of the top or interesting stories……. However this is not something new most blogs already do that…
Nice post. It’s not even Saturday!
nice work. keep this format-
I love this idea. You need your own RSS feed.
+1
The whole “f*ck offerpal” thing was funny. But don’t let that little joke hide the fact that we really do need a feed for the best of techcrunch.