rants

Start Up Services Snake Oil

I’ve been so well entrenched in the journalistic world of entrepreneurship that I haven’t lifted my head out of the mess of funding stories and launch posts to actually pay attention to what is ha

The Internet Is Awful

We were on the coast of Croatia when we saw our first nude sunbather. He was an older gentlemen who probably looked good in a suit but now, skin pruned from the water and his body hair plastered to a

The Promise And Perils Of 3D Printer Popularity

I’ve stopped writing about a few things recently, mostly because of fatigue. First, I’m not that interested in merchants accepting bitcoin – these little blips are primarily PR moves

Getting My Brain Back

I can’t do it anymore. This has been a summer of social media. I’ve used it endlessly, made plans on it, chatted, read it religiously, and watched countless friends and friends of friends

Samsung’s Race To The Bottom

It's happened before and it's happened again - a popular commodity appears and is remade in so many permutations and from so many manufacturers that the differentiation ultimately focuses on price. Wh

Why I Go To Disrupt

It's never good for someone inside an organization to defend its actions to the outside. It smacks of self-serving and one-sided debate, and, as the Bard wrote, "the lady doth protest too much, methin

Fools And Their Bitcoin

I got a text message today from a PR person - one I actually like - who asked me if I wanted the exclusive on two new <a href="https://techcrunch.com/tag/bitcoin">bitcoin</a> ATMs in Austin as well as

How I Funded My Company With Credit Cards (And Almost Failed)

We have all heard of the story of <a href="https://techcrunch.com/tag/AirBnB">Airbnb</a>. They're a successful company that made it through their infancy by "bootstrapping by credit card." They ran ou

Bitcoin’s Image Problem

I know manias. I've seen them again and again - hordes of people find out about a product or idea, back it with all their might, and are angry when anyone refuses to genuflect to their sacred cow. It

Open Thread: What Will You Give The World This Year?

Maybe it's the ham and biscuit brunch talking, but here's something we've never done: an open thread. To celebrate our new Facebook commenting system, I'd like you all to start sharing what you'd like

The End Of Subsidized Phones Could Be Near

For almost a decade and a half, mobile customers - and Americans in particular - have enjoyed a certain economic perk: phone subsidies from the major carriers. This meant you could, on sign-up, get a

Let’s Sit Out Black Friday, Shall We?

It's Thanksgiving in the States and tomorrow is the biggest shopping day of the year. In fact stores will be open tonight so you can elbow your way into a scrum of bargain hunters and frotteurists. I'

How To Stop 3D Printing’s Race To The Bottom

Today's big news, courtesy of <a target="_blank" href="http://qz.com/106483/3d-printing-will-explode-in-2014-thanks-to-the-expiration-of-key-patents/">Quartz</a>, is about the expiration of laser sint

We Asked For This

There is a certain jollity in the reactions of the webby class to news that the NSA has been, first, spying on Verizon communications for years, and second has approached multiple information-gatherin

Your Bitcoins Are Finally Worth Something

Bitcoins are nominally worth $113 as of this very moment. That means very little in the real world. As <a target="_blank" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/07/living-on-bitcoin-for

Fool Me Twice, Shame On You: AP’s Twitter Feed Has No Followers, Still Showing Hoaxed Tweet This Morning

We all make mistakes, but for the AP and Twitter to futz up a phishing attack so royally is an embarrassment. As you'll recall, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2013/04/23/ap-twitter-hack-preceded-by-a

SimCity Gets Paid Advertisements Because If There’s One Thing That Game Needs…

<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/we-built-this-simcity-on-a-shaky-foundation-of-drm/">Sim City</a>, EA's beleaguered sim game that, for a time, was probably the most cursed title in the blog

On The Internet, Everyone Knows You’re A Dick

In light of the <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/">recent PyCon debacle</a> in which an offended party publicly shamed two developers at a conf

Apple’s Forward Stance

Apple doesn't need a miracle, but clearly the marketing department thinks the company needs to step things up. To wit: Apple's latest <a target="_blank" href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/why-iphone/">

Maybe The PS4 Isn’t So Bad After All

Although I, like many of you, suffered through Sony's interminable and boring press conference last night, I came away less concerned about the PlayStation's future as a platform. What I saw, in short
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