This is a public service announcement to all four of you that visited http://technews.techcrunch.com today and were confused by the jazzy Black Oak Asset Management splash page above; No we have not been hacked. And, no, this is not some kind of elaborate and arcane SOPA/PIPA protest. And while it would be amazing if we did offer complimentary services from the top attorneys & CPA’s [sic] in the area, we don’t. I barely know what a 401K is. → Read More
The nominations have been tabulated and the votes are in. Over 300,000 nominations were calculated across 20 categories. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce the finalists for 2011′s best in technology. Voting begins now.
For 2011, we’ve added some new categories. Best Location App, Best Cloud Services and Biggest Social Impact join the Crunchies ranks this year. You’ll also find Best Social App (Google+ is up against Facebook Timeline, the New New Twitter, Instagram, and Path 2.0), the NYC-dominated category of Best Shopping App, Best New Startup and the year’s best VC’s and Angel Investors. Newcomers like Task Rabbit’s Leah Busque and Keith Rabois for his angel investments (Airbnb, LinkedIn, Yammer, Path, YouTube) made the list of finalists, as well as industry favorites such as Marc Andreessen, Jack Dorsey, Mark Pincus and Ron Conway.
In addition to today’s announcement of the Finalists, we are happy to release our next batch of tickets through Eventbrite. The release begins now, so act fast and get them while you can. → Read More
I know that all of you have been waiting on pins and needles… refreshing the TechCrunch web page multiple times each day to see when the next batch of Crunchies tickets will be on sale. Well, today is the day! The second batch of tickets for the 5th Annual Crunchies Awards are available now. 200 tickets have been released for the annual event honoring the best achievements in tech brought to you by GIgaOm, VentureBeat and Techcrunch for general admission purchase. The first batch sold out in less than two hours, so purchase your tickets now, lest you have to wait for the next release in January. → Read More
We are gearing up for 2012 and getting ready to bring you some major events you will want to put on your calendars. Our dates are already locked in for the Crunchies, Disrupt NYC and SF, and our annual summer bash at August Capital. International events are also in the works.
The Crunchies—January 31
TechCrunch will kick off 2012 with The Crunchies along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat on Tuesday, January 31, 2012. The tech party to start the year will move to Davies Symphony Hall this year for both the awards ceremony and the famous after party. Nominations for the entrepreneurial spirited categories are in and being tabulated. Voting begins in early January.
Disrupt NYC—May 19-23
TechCrunch Disrupt will return to New York in 2012 with the pizza-and-caffeine-fueled Hackathon on May 19 – 20, 2012. The TechCrunch Disrupt New York conference will follow on May 21 – 23, 2012 where our fun loving friends at Shaker will pass the Disrupt Cup to the newest Startup Battlefield winner. → Read More
Antti Vilpponen, co-founder and CEO of ArcticStartup, a competitor to TechCrunch Europe when it comes to coverage of – surprise – tech startups from the Arctic region, wrote a post yesterday about the way we – supposedly – handle embargoes around here.
We don’t always respond to criticism, especially not from competitors, but I figured this presents us with a wonderful opportunity to clarify some things.
Vilpponen asserts that we sometimes go too far in how we treat startups by not just telling them we want to have stories exclusively but by somehow determining if and when they get to talk to other journalists and bloggers after we run our post. When startups don’t abide to our demands, that jeopardizes their chances for future coverage. Or as Vilpponen calls it, we blackmail startups.
I’ll say it right off the bat: that’s bullshit. → Read More
Between bridging the translation gap, the lack of and then abundance of morning coffee, collective Internet struggles and the many many hacks using TianJi’s (“the LinkedIn of China”) API, the TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing Hackathon just happened, and it was nothing short of amazing.
Around 300 hackers signed on to spend 24 hours together, and 100 actually braved a night full of spotty connectivity and vegetable noodles in order to present their hacks at 11:00 am Beijing time. Each team was given a minute to show their stuff in front of the multi-lingual audience and judges. → Read More
Ni hao! It’s now morning and all of us here at the Disrupt Beijing Hackathon are somehow awake. We’ve got around 50 survivors of a grueling night spent coding about to take the stage and present the fruits of their labors, the excitement is palpable.
For the many of you not in China, you can (miraculously) watch the very first ever international Disrupt hackathon on the livestream above.
Good times. → Read More
It has begun. Some eight hours ago, eight more members of the TechCrunch team landed in Beijing. Giddy and jetlagged, we are spending every minute between wheels down today and curtain up Monday morning working on the Hackathon, shooting videos, meeting with Chinese speakers and showing Western speakers a bit of this amazing country. Most important, we’re working with the startups competing in the Battlefield to hone their pitches for their six minutes of International glory early next week. → Read More
At the risk of not only beating a dead horse, but cremating it with self-reflective posts, this video is too good not to post. Jonathan Mann, our favorite singer/songwriter is back with a song about what else: the end of TechCrunch.
As we begin this new era, it’s a fitting tribute to the old one. TechCrunch is dead, long live TechCrunch. → Read More
There’s no more exciting place to be than TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2011 this morning. I’m not kidding. In case you can’t be here because of an act of God or something just as urgent, we’ve embedding the livestream here. → Read More
This is a post I never thought I’d have to write. Unfortunately, I do. And the worst part about it is that it should be Michael Arrington writing this post, not me.
But he can’t.
TechCrunch is on the precipice. As soon as tomorrow, Mike may be thrown out of the company he founded. Or he may not. No one knows. And if he is, he will be replaced by — well, again, no one knows. No one knows much of anything. Certainly no one at TechCrunch. This site is about to change forever and we’re in the total fucking dark. I’ve been able to piece together little bits of information here and there, and it’s not looking good. Hence, this post. → Read More
If you’ve visited TechCrunch on your mobile you know it’s been a generic experience…until now. With the introduction of our new look and snazzy/abominable logo it was time for something better: the all-new TechCrunch.com mobile site. The AOL Mobile web team have done a great job adapting our desktop experience for a plethora of small screens. And when I say a plethora I’m not kidding: iPhone and Android (of course) but also BlackBerry, webOS and feature phones.
It’s lean, it’s mean, it’s a no-nonsense TechCrunch in your pocket. But it’s also the complete experience: not just articles but video, comments, and more. Tap the menu button to get at categories and hot topics. It’s perfect for getting your fix of tech news while waiting for the train. → Read More
Earlier today, I was checking out some new questions in the TechCrunch topic area on Quora. One in particular caught my eye: How was TechCrunch traffic affected by their major redesign in July 2011?
This has been something I’ve seen asked here and there given the radical changes we implemented — and, I assume, given the audience issues Gawker faced after their recent redesign. Mostly, people seem to want to know: is TechCrunch tanking?
I was set to weigh in, when I noticed that someone else already had. This person (not affiliated with TechCrunch) painted a picture in which our site was essentially crashing and burning since the redesign (the answer has since been removed by Quora, presumably due to down-voting). Their source? Compete. → Read More
Couldn’t buy tickets in time or just too far away from Palo Alto? You can stay on top of all the Mobile First Crunchup action with the livestream here (starts at 1 p.m.) and our blog posts throughout the event. Full agenda after the jump.
→ Read More
If a website gets a redesign, and nobody hates it, is it even on the Internet? It’s been exactly a week since our redesign and the screams of agony from the tens of offended readers have finally died down. My favorite responses? Milk founder Kevin Rose’s (joke) offer to revert Digg back to Version 3 if we also reneged, investor Chris Sacca’s colorful description of our font choices and those two subsequent “Your Site Sucks” tips that spelled “Micael Arrington” and “Site Redisign” in the subject lines exactly like that. → Read More
Since we launched the new TechCrunch redesign, we’ve been receiving a lot of feedback from our readers. We even provided a handy copy-and-paste template for your reviews. Some love it, some really hate it. The logo has become a Tetris game. Even Hitler weighed in.
The TechCrunch team is busy following the comments and critiques. While we have gotten a lot of positive feedback, here’s a look at some of the typical negative comments we’ve received: → Read More
So, what do you think of our redesign so far? Wait, don’t answer that. You already have — thousands of times. The most common refrain seems to be, “love the new site, hate the logo”. But my favorite offshoot of that is the notion that our new logo looks like Tetris. I assume this is meant to be an insult, but I mean, who doesn’t love Tetris?
Anyway, one driven reader decided to take things to the next logical conclusion: he created a version of Tetris using the TechCrunch “T” and the TechCrunch “C”. TCTetris. It’s pure gold. → Read More
It’s been months in the making. It’s taken innumerable twists and turns along the way. It’s survived an acquisition. It’s been a challenge and a privilege to coordinate. It’s my incredible pleasure to present the all-new, completely redesigned TechCrunch. With special thanks to our launch sponsor, Dell.
I’ve been acting as product manager for the TechCrunch redesign since the beginning of 2011. The project began last fall before AOL’s acquisition of TechCrunch. By December it needed product management, so Michael Arrington asked AOL’s Brad Garlinghouse for a product manager & project lead. He turned to AOL’s head of Consumer Experience, Matte Scheinker (my manager).
TechCrunch is bold. It’s raw. It’s fast-paced. With 50 articles crossing the home page daily we couldn’t simply redesign the reader-facing site; we had to think about the CMS too. We wanted to support you, the readers, because you read every article we post. We went through more rounds of wireframes and logos than I can remember. After our eighth rejected visual design I locked myself in a room with Code & Theory’s creative director and we tweaked, discussed and revised until we had something we both liked, a precursor to what you see here today. → Read More
By now you’ve probably seen Mike’s post about the redesign coming next week and I wanted to talk a bit about where things are headed. CrunchGear, in short, is being subsumed into TechCrunch/Gadgets, a plan that has been long percolating at the HQ and something we, in a way, welcome. I started CrunchGear on August 10, 2006. Mike Arrington called me after I left Gizmodo and asked me to start a gadget blog. I did. It’s been nearly five years now and in that time we’ve posted 47,243 stories, run through dozens of writers, and amused a few million of you guys on a daily basis. So things will change slightly, but the same CrunchGear wit, wisdom, and opinion will be in full effect over at our new home. → Read More
