Is this Listia ad on TechCrunch a 'scam' offer?
The other day, I was checking the latest posts on TechCrunch and came across a promotion promising a free pack of MySpace branded playing cards. I love free things and I clicked, hoping that my next game of poker would have a MySpace theme.
Instead I was greeted by a charity auction on a service called Listia. To bid, I needed 'credits'. The parallels to the scam offers controversy I wrote about on Monday started to became apparent.
Is the controversy over virtual goods and 'scam' CPA offers overblown?
The market for virtual goods, and the CPA offers that many consumers
complete to purchase them, is under attack. The first salvo was fired
by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington and the battle has now spread to the
mainstream media.
The fallout was quick. And it continues: after being the target of no less than six TechCrunch posts in the past week relating to these 'scam' offers, Zynga, one of the most prominent companies in the space, has removed all of its CPA (lead gen) offers while it seeks to work with the third party networks that provide them to root out the types of offers that have come under fire.
Equity for tech licenses? No thanks
An interesting fact about personal finance startup Mint.com, which recently sold to Intuit for $170m: the account aggregation technology that powers Mint.com is licensed from a company called Yodlee.
Yodlee, which was founded in 1999, has raised over $100m in funding. While it operates its own consumer-facing personal finance website, its core business is in licensing its technology to others. Its licensees include startups similar in nature to Mint.com as well as major financial institutions like Bank of America.
Another popular tech blog embraces paid content
There's a lot of talk about newspapers charging for their content
online but quietly, something interesting is happening: the very blogs
that are usually associated with 'free' are dipping their toes in the
waters of paid content.
In the tech blogosphere, TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb sell reports. GigaOm has a subscription service. Add to that list Ars Technica, which has launched a new subscription service dubbed Ars Premier 2.0.
Microsoft regrets racist photo edit and meme creation
Someone's head will roll for this. There is a Microsoft employee inept at Photoshop who has brought a good deal of embarrassment to the company with a poor attempt to white wash the company's marketing materials in Europe.
The above images both graced Micrsoft websites this week. The top picture, which appears on the company's Seattle-based website, features a black man. But on the company's Polish site, a white man's head was superimposed into the shot. Whoever massacred the image didn't have time to deal with issues of consistency — he left the original man's hand unchanged in the Polish version.
A reader pointed out the discrepancy to TechCrunch, and Microsoft has since apologized. The company isn't naming names on who was responsible for the mistake, but they have since returned the image to its original state on the Polish website. Too bad for them it's already become a meme.
Microsoft Bing jingler sticks it to Techcrunch's MG Siegler
The winner of the Microsoft Bing Jingle Challenge (or whatever it was called) yesterday had his song savaged by Techcrunch writer MG Siegler.
“’Catchy’ is one word for it,” wrote MG. “Another is awful.” I’m afraid I agree with Siegler here, apart from the catchy bit, but make of it what you will:
It turns out that the winning songwriter - one Jonathan Mann, who writes one song a day and uploads them to YouTube – isn’t one to take this kind of criticism lying down. He has replied to Siegler via the power of song!
Twitter hack: insight into a hot startup that may be losing its edge
When Michael Arrington of TechCrunch decided to publish confidential Twitter corporate documents obtained by a hacker, I wasn't impressed. It's a bad decision that's hard to justify ethically.
But what's done is done and instead of admonishing him for using a different brand of moral compass, I thought there'd be more value in using the opportunity, no matter how unfortunate, to make some observations about one of the internet's hottest startups.
Europe shows off its start-up muscles
Last night TechCrunch Europe hosted their inaugural Europas awards, with a list highly impressive nominees and an audience of digital royalty - both start-up and established - including the Traveling Geeks who had been at Econsultancy’s roundtable event only hours before. So, what were the categories and who were the winners?
Memo to TechCrunch: make love not war, because negativity sucks
TechCrunch is one of the blogs that I check on a daily basis. If there's a blog that falls under the category of 'must-read', TechCrunch is it.
TechCrunch made a name for itself by covering new internet startups in Silicon Valley and has a reputation of breaking important technology news.
Q&A: TechCrunch UK's Editor Mike Butcher talks about the internet startup landscape
Recently, it was the TechCrunchTalk and ChristmasCrunch Party, which focused upon how the online startup community is being affected by the looming recession.
Some 400 people attended the event to hear how the landscape currently looks for new internet businesses, and to try to understand what will happen in the near future.
Econsultancy caught up with Mike Butcher, who was hosting the occasion, to gain further understanding as to what the thoughts are amongst the influential investors, current companies and the digital experts, including Mike’s own thoughts and impressions.
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
