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. 

Our long suffering lead developer Vineet Thanedar explains what’s up:

“In the past, we had our own test server on this IP (hosted at MediaTemple) for those subdomains (technews, primaries and so on). We have long stopped using MT as our hosting provider. It seems that the IP is now used by someone else, Black Oak in this case. I believe this is what happened since the subdomains have existed for a long time and no one likely noticed the change of IP ownership.

I have deleted the DNS mappings for the subdomains in question.”

Yeah, at some point in Mike’s illustrious career he flirted with the idea of a Reddit clone. Eventually we forgot about it and so did MediaTemple until some industrious person who was clearly in a Deep Internet K-hole came across it this morning.

Yes, I get paid modestly to write this stuff. Rimshot. 

Update: Tickets are now sold out. Be sure to keep your eye out for ticket giveaways and for when we release our next batch of tickets.

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, the NYC-dominated category of Best Shopping App, Best New Startup and the year’s best VC’s and Angel Investors. Newcomers like TaskRabbit’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.

There are some pretty good match-ups this year. Google+ is up against Facebook Timeline for Best Social App, along with the New New Twitter, Instagram, and Path 2.0). The Kindle Fire is competing with the iPad 2 for Best New Device. And Pinterest, Turntable.fm, Nest, Fab, and Codecademy are all vying for Best New Startup (even though two of those were complete pivots). LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman is up for Angel of the Year. His seed investment in Zynga is worth 160 times what he paid for it. But AngelList founders Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi are also finalists in the category for helping to democratize angel investing, along with Conway, Rabois, Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, and Kevin Rose (who has a killer portfolio that includes Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga, and Square). Who will win?

Everyone is eligible and encouraged to vote. The rules state that you may vote once per day, per award category, until voting closes on Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 11:59pm PST. There are 20 award categories open for voting, recognizing the top accomplishments across a variety of fields and roles. If you are one of the finalists, create a badge and get your community excited about this honor and get them to vote for you. Winners will be announced on January 31, live at the Crunchies.

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.

Here are your Finalists:

Best Technology Achievement (2010 winner: Google Self Driving Cars)
Lytro (Related posts)
NFC (Related posts)
OnLive (Related posts)
Siri (Related posts)
Tesla Flat Pack Battery (Related posts)

Best Social Application (2010 winner: DailyBooth)
Facebook Timeline (Related posts)
Instagram (Related posts)
Google+ (Related posts)
The New New Twitter (Related posts)
Path 2.0 (Related posts)

Best Shopping Application (2010 winner: Groupon)
Birchbox (Related posts)
Fab (Related posts)
Gilt Groupe (Related posts)
Lot18 (Related posts)
Warby Parker (Related posts)

Best Mobile Application (2010 winner: Google Mobile Maps for Android)
Evernote (Related posts)
Flipboard (Related posts)
Pandora (Related posts)
Spotify (Related posts)
Square (Related posts)
TaskRabbit (Related posts)

Best Location Application (New category for 2011)
Airbnb (Related posts)
Foursquare (Related posts)
Grindr (Related posts)
RunKeeper (Related posts)
Uber (Related posts)

Best Tablet Application (2010 winner: Flipboard)
djay (Related posts)
Eventbrite At the Door (Related posts)
Fotopedia (Related posts)
GarageBand (Related posts)
Netflix (Related posts)
StumbleUpon (Related posts)

Best Design (2010 winner: gogobot)
Gojee (Related posts)
Orchestra (Related posts)
Path 2.0 (Related posts)
Pinterest (Related posts)
Quora (Related posts)

Best Bootstrapped Startup (2010 winner: addmired)
Github (Related posts)
Imgur (Related posts)
Instapaper (Related posts)
Onesheet (Related posts)
Tap Tap Tap (Camera+) (Related posts)

Best Cloud Service (New category for 2011)
Asana (Related posts)
Box (Related posts)
CloudFlare (Related posts)
Dropbox (Related posts)
Okta (Related posts)
Twilio (Related posts)

Best International Startup (2010 winner: Viki)
Badoo (Related posts)
Klarna (Related posts)
Peixe Urbano (Related posts)
Rovio (Related posts)
SoundCloud (Related posts)
Wonga (Related posts)

Best Clean Tech Startup (2010 winner: SolarCity)
Alta Energy (Related posts)
Array Power (Related posts)
EcoATM (Related posts)
EcoMotors (Related posts)
Hara (Related posts)

Best New Device (2010 winner: iPad)
Galaxy Nexus (Related posts)
iPad 2 (Related posts)
iPhone 4S (Related posts)
Kindle Fire (Related posts)
Nest (Related posts)

Best Time Sink (2010 winner: Cityville)
Modern Warfare 3 (Related posts)
Quora (Related posts)
Skyrim (Related posts)
Turntable.fm (Related posts)
Words With Friends (Related posts)

Biggest Social Impact (New category for 2011)
Charity: Water (Related posts)
Khan Academy (Related posts)
Kickstarter (Related posts)
Practice Fusion (Related posts)
Twitter (Related posts)

Angel of the Year (2010 winner: Paul Graham)
Ron Conway (Related posts)
Paul Graham (Related posts)
Reid Hoffman (Related posts)
Keith Rabois (Related posts)
Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi (AngelList) (Related posts for Naval) (Related posts for Babak)
Kevin Rose (Related posts)

VC of the Year (2010 winner: Yuri Milner)
Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz (Related posts for Marc) (Related posts for Ben)
Matt Cohler (Related posts)
Vinod Khosla (Related posts)
Aileen Lee (Related posts)
Yuri Milner (Related posts)
David Sze (Related posts)

Founder of the Year (2010 winner: Mark Pincus)
Leah Busque (Task Rabbit) (Related posts)
Brian Chesky (Airbnb) (Related posts)
Jack Dorsey (Square, Twitter) (Related posts)
Susan Feldman & Ali Pincus (One Kings Lane) (Related posts for Susan) (Related posts for Ali)
Drew Houston (Dropbox) (Related posts)

CEO of the Year (2010 winner: Andrew Mason)
Dick Costolo (Twitter) (Related posts)
Daniel Ek (Spotify) (Related posts)
Phil Libin (Evernote) (Related posts)
Mark Pincus (Zynga) (Related posts)
Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn) (Related posts)

Best New Startup of 2011 (2010 winner: Quora)
Codecademy (Related posts)
Fab (Related posts)
Nest (Related posts)
Pinterest (Related posts)
Turntable.fm (Related posts)

Best Overall Startup of 2011 (2010 winner: Twitter)
Dropbox (Related posts)
Instagram (Related posts)
Gilt Groupe (Related posts)
Spotify (Related posts)
Square (Related posts)
Tumblr (Related posts)

5th Annual Crunchies Awards
Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA

7:30pm – midnight – Awards Ceremony and After Party
A night of celebration with festive attire.

Our sponsors help make the Crunchies happen, if you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities during the ceremony or after-party, please contact Jeanne Logozzo at jeanne@techcrunch.com.

For press credentials, please fill out this request form and confirmations will be sent separately via email.

Update: Tickets are now sold out. Stay tuned for our next batch of tickets to go on sale after the new year.

I know that all of you have been waiting on pins and needles… refreshing the TechCrunch home 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. 250 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.

The Crunchies has a bigger, grander home this year at the Davies Symphony Hall with the after party to immediately follow at the same venue. The Davies is home to the world renowned San Francisco Symphony, now its 100th year.  The Davies Symphony Hall is one of the world’s most modern and beautiful acoustic venues.  In addition to the San Francisco Symphony’s infamous musical premieres, the Davies has hosted benefit concerts and readings with Sting, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Jack Nicholson, Annette Benning, Bruce Willis and Sean Penn.  The Davies Symphony Hall has sweeping views of San Francisco City Hall and the War Memorial Opera House. The curved, floor to ceiling glass lobby makes a gorgeous setting for the 5th Annual Crunchies. If you would like to learn more about the Crunchies, you can check out all of last year’s Crunchies Awards happenings here.

Tickets will sell out quickly.  Don’t delay in getting your seat for the hottest party to kick off the new year in tech. If you miss your chance to get your tickets today, we’ll release another batch of tickets in January. Stay tuned for future ticket release announcements.

After the past few weeks of spirited debates, all of the nominations are in and the votes are being tabulated. We will announce the finalists in early January and open voting for the Crunchies awards.

The 5th Annual Crunchies Awards

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA

7:30pm – midnight – Awards Ceremony and After Party
A night of celebration with festive attire.

Our sponsors help make the Crunchies happen, if you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities during the ceremony or after-party, please contact Jeanne Logozzo.

For press credentials, please fill out this request form and confirmations will be sent separately via email.

Tickets are on sale here. Be sure to act fast and get them now!

Image credit: Orange Photography

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. Make your voice heard and vote for your favorites.The next ticket batch release will occur before the holidays. Look for announcements to come on TechCrunch.

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. Last year, Ashton Kutcher and Paul Graham shared their investment strategies with Charlie Rose, Keith Rabois shared why Square will be more profitable than PayPal, and GetAround battled it out with 30 other excellent companies to take home the Disrupt Cup.

Summer Party—August 3

Each year we all break out our summer dresses and button-downs and head south to Sand Hill Road for the August Capital party. This past summer we held our Mobile First CrunchUp before the afternoon sun beckoned and you can expect more community building and fun in 2012. August 3rd is the date for 2012′s soirée.

Disrupt SF—September 8-12

In September, TechCrunch Disrupt will return to San Francisco with the Hackathon taking place on September 8 – 9, 2012 and the conference on September 10 – 12, 2012.  As previous Startup Battlefield companies can attest, nowhere else can you launch your company where you are offered the audience, investors and media spotlight as when you launch at TechCrunch Disrupt. This past Disrupt in San Francisco brought us Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosola giving us their insights as well as Dustin Moskovitz sharing his perspective about the founder’s mystique and what’s wrong with Google while Eric Ries, Scott Cook and the Lean Startup movement made their case. 2012 promises to keep our participants and readers on their toes.

In 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt went global with the introduction of an emerging international market conference in Beijing, China. The two day event kicked off with a bang with TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy interviewing Pony Ma in his first live interview with an international reporter. The conference continued with great interviews with Lei Jun, Steve Chen, Niklas Zennström and more. While it was our first Startup Battlefield presented outside the U.S., it certainly wasn’t our first Battlefield of international launches. In the end, OrderWithMe was the clear winner, capturing the spirit of tech between Silicon Valley and China and took home the Disrupt Cup and $50,000 check.

We’re looking for another city outside of the U.S. to join Beijing in the ranks of TechCrunch Disrupt’s global presence. Where would you like to see TechCrunch Disrupt next?

Mark your calendars and save the dates. If you’d like to become a foundational part of the TechCrunch Disrupt experience and learn about sponsorship opportunities, please contact Jeanne Logozzo.

• January 31, 2012 – The 5th Annual Crunchies Awards
• May 19-23, 2012 – New York Disrupt Hackathon and Conference
• August 3, 2012 – Crunchup and August Capital Summer Party
• September 8-12, 2012 – San Francisco Disrupt Hackathon and Conference

Stay tuned for more event announcements to come!

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. The notion that we ‘treat startups’ one way or another is in itself a very strange way to describe how we work. Regardless of what you think of TechCrunch, you should realize that we’re not at all that difficult to work with (most of the time). We didn’t get to where we are today by screwing over the very people we champion every day. We’re just really, really good at what we do, and once you get to that point there’s always going to be someone that wishes things were different. In our case, multiple someones. High trees catch a lot of wind, etcetera.

It makes absolutely no sense for us to alienate startup founders and to prematurely blow up relationships and suspend all future coverage of any company based on the way they choose to work with us and other media. It would be a lot like biting the hand that feeds us.

Do we break embargoes? Sometimes. Do we break embargoes even after agreeing to them? Sometimes (but very rarely). Do we agree to embargoes and then respect them? Sometimes. Do we refuse to cover some startups when they don’t want to give a story to us exclusively? Sometimes. Do we agree to cover a startup even when we know other media were briefed? Sometimes. Do we turn away some startups and then cover them even more vigorously after we ‘lose’ the story? Sometimes.

Basically, it all depends. If you’re an entrepreneur and you think you have a good story for us, why not just ask us what we think, and we’ll find a way to work together if we agree that it’s something we think our readers will want to know about. We will be much more accommodating to you than to the PR agency you employ, whether they like it or not. We talk your talk better than they ever could.

If you’re a regular reader, you will remember that Michael Arrington, our founder and once fearless leader, killed the embargo almost three years ago. Go read his post and tell me if this looked like a clear policy to you. It wasn’t (spoiler alert: “we’ll break every embargo, but there will be exceptions”). It was more like a big middle finger to the rotten industry called PR, and some of their methods.

Now read that post again. Try and find any mentions of ‘startups’, ‘founders’ or ‘entrepreneurs’. You won’t find any, simply because it wasn’t about them. We have a lot of respect for startups, especially compared to the majority of PR people out there, so we go out of our way to accommodate them.

Here’s what really happens. Most of the news we break here comes straight from sources we know, or originates from readers who give us tips, anonymously or otherwise (more of that, please). Oftentimes, we’ll break a story exclusively because a startup founder explicitly offers it to us that way. If the story is good enough, we’ll accept the offer. We’re not fools, after all.

We’ll ask startups if we can cover their news exclusively, because, well, that guarantees that we break the story and that’s what we’re all about. Calling that bullying or blackmailing is either a bad case of sour grapes or a regrettable misunderstanding of how this world works.

If startup founders don’t agree to an exclusive, we’ll determine whether we want to still cover or pass up on it. In fact, that’s a big – and possibly the hardest – part of our job.

Sometimes, we’ll turn away startups when we know that other media will be covering them, especially if they’ve briefed publications who also have a record of breaking embargoes (if you thought we were the only ones, think again). As a rule, we do not tell entrepreneurs that this means that they’ll never get any coverage from us in the future. Again, we’re not fools.

TechCrunch is a group of individual bloggers, and we all have our preferred way of working, our quirks, our specialties, our nuisances and our views on how we should cater to our audience.

One common trait: a passion for breaking news about the industry we love so dearly.

So, is there such a thing as a ‘TechCrunch embargo’? Have we ever dictated to an entrepreneur if and when he or she can go talk to other media? I certainly haven’t in my three years at TechCrunch, and I seriously don’t think anyone who works here would ever resort to such tactics. I agree with Vilpponen that this would be harmful to the startup ecosystem, and, again, we go out of our way to make sure we build solid relationships with anyone operating in this space. Our one goal is to keep breaking news and scooping competitors at every chance we get, but never at the cost of hurting the community of entrepreneurs we’ve worked so hard to raise awareness for over the years.

The simple truth is that we’ve long found ourselves in a position where we wouldn’t have to ‘bully’ or ‘blackmail’ entrepreneurs at all even if we wanted to, FUD spewing competitors be damned.

Startups have absolutely nothing to fear, except maybe our transparency and honesty.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr user burstingwithcolor)

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.

The judges included TechCrunch Mobile’s Greg Kumparak, ICanHazCheeseburger’s Ben Huh, Zynga’s Andy Tain, TenCent’s Peter Zhong, Sonos’ Carter Agar, Google’s Ming Yang and DigiCha’s Bill Bishop, who parsed the 46 hacks to the best of their ability, and culled six of the best. In addition to everlasting fame and glory, winners will have the opportunity to present onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt proper.

Meet first TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing Hackathon winners, below (links to come when the hacks go live).

Grand Prize WeDiary – A chronological visual diary for your blog.

Firecracker – A mobile game that simulates playing with firecrackers.

TouchMusic – A slick looking smartphone app that functions as a theramin.

HackMaster – A game that teaches people how to code Javascript, with a love story.

Shareware – Shareware realizes you’re browsing from China, and loads Chinese share buttons instead of Facebook and Twitter, solving a huge problem.

Pomo – Mobile-based app that tracks your working time — graphs what time is productive versus not productive.

Ni hao! It’s now morning and all of us here at the Disrupt Beijing Hackathon are somehow awake. We’ve got 46 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.

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.

It’s fitting that the conference is being held spitting distance from Olympic village. Like the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Disrupt Beijing is a story of China’s coming of age as a unique and complex global force of the startup world and of the simultaneous opportunity and threat that poses for the West.

TechNode editor Gang Lu stopped by the TechCrunch war room tonight, and on a stroll to the Watercube, I asked him what he was most looking forward to next week. Video above.

Lucky you, you don’t even need to leave the couch to get a piece of the action! Thanks to Ustream, the conference will be live streamed for your convenience. So don’t forget to tune into the Hackathon at 8 PM PST Saturday and the conference on 6 PM PST Monday and Tuesday. And wish us luck!

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.

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.

Those at home can also keep up with the action by searching for #TCDisrupt hashtag on Twitter, watching the TechCrunch Disrupt backstage videos or refreshing the page continuously until something new comes up.

Stay tuned. Full agenda for today below.

Monday, September 12th

9:00am – 9:10am
TechCrunch opening remarks

9:10am – 9:40am
Fireside chat with Reid Hoffman, Greylock Partners and LinkedIn

9:40am – 10:00am
Fireside chat with Mike McCue, Flipboard

10:00am – 10:20am
Founder Stories with Andrew Stalbow, Rovio and Tom Conrad, Pandora

10:20am -10:30am
Special product announcement

10:31am – 10:50am
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

10:51am – 11:00am
Special product announcement

11:00am – 11:30am
Fireside chat with Doug Leone, Sequoia Capital

11:30am – 12:10pm
Office Hours with Paul Graham, Y Combinator

12:10pm – 12:30pm
Fireside chat with Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, and Max Levchin

12:30pm – 2:00pm
LUNCH and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

2:00pm – 2:15pm
Founder Stories with Dustin Moskovitz, Asana

Startup Battlefield

2:15pm – 3:15pm
Session 1
Expert Judges: Tony Conrad (About.me), Brad Garlinghouse (AOL), Stephen Messer(Cross Commerce Media)

3:15pm – 3:30pm
BREAK and BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY
STARTUP ALLEY AUDIENCE CHOICE VOTING CLOSES @ 3:30 pm

3:30pm – 4:30pm
Session 2
Expert Judges: Aileen Lee (Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers), Dustin Moskovitz (Asana), Michael Parekh (MPi Capital), Joshua Schachter (Jig)

4:30pm – 4:45pm
BREAK

4:45pm – 5:45pm
Session 3
Expert Judges: Josh Felser (Freestyle Capital), April Underwood (Twitter), Jim Lanzone (CBS Interactive), Michael Marquez (CODE Advisors)

5:45-7:30pm
BROWSE STARTUP ALLEY

End of sessions at entrance to Concourse: RVIP Lounge: Sponsored by uTest

9:00pm-Midnight
After Party hosted by Bridgewater
1015 Folsom
1015 Folsom St
Conference badge required for admission

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.

By now, if you read TechCrunch, you likely know about the nuclear situation that has exploded over the past several days. Mike unveiled an investing entity known as the “CrunchFund” with full AOL support — so much support, mind you, that they’re the largest backers of the fund — only to have his legs kicked out from under him due to what can only be described as nonsensical political infighting and really poor communication. To make matters worse, some Journalists (with a big “J” and even bigger senses of entitlement) have proceeded to pile on, despite having no real knowledge — at all — of the way TechCrunch actually works. And now here we are.

Earlier this evening, I wrote a post on my personal blog attempting to explain to those outside our company how TechCrunch actually works from an editorial perspective. The notion that Mike, or anyone else, investing in a company would dictate some sort of giant conflicted agenda is laughable. Literally. If Mike tried to get me to write some unreasonable post about a company he had invested in, I would laugh at him. But he would never do that. Ask Loic Le Meur. Ask Kevin Rose. Ask Shervin Pishevar. Ask Airbnb. Ask countless others. He didn’t get to where he is by being an idiot. He has gotten to where he is by being honest with his readers. Even if everyone doesn’t always agree with him, he has been honest. And he’s brought forth information that no one else has, even when it’s probably not in his best interest to do so.

AOL may be on the verge of changing all of that.

Again, none of us know for sure — including Mike — but I have a really bad feeling. In my post earlier, I wrote, “These things tend to flare up every few months, and they ultimately end up meaning nothing.” That was premature. These situations have arisen in the past — multiple times — and they always have led nowhere. But now I think this time actually may be different. Arianna Huffington is already on record as saying she’s looking for a new Editor-in-Chief to replace Mike (who technically was co-Editor along with Erick — even though the title has never meant much). And there are conflicting reports as to whether or not Mike actually works for AOL — let alone TechCrunch — anymore.

As someone who has helped build TechCrunch into what it has become, this entire situation is insulting. I can only imagine how Mike feels.

The point of my earlier post was twofold: 1) to dispel the assertions being made by The New York Times and others about our brand of reporting. 2) To provide everyone with some insight as to how TechCrunch actually works. If we have anything close to a trade secret, that’s it. The magic at TechCrunch happens because the writers have very little oversight. Instead, the emphasis is placed on hiring the right writers in the first place and putting them through a trial-by-fire to see who emerges. Those that have, my peers, are the best at what they do. And that’s why TechCrunch has soared.

Mike Arrington has enabled all of this. He brought in Heather, he brought in Erick, he brought in the rest of us. He built TechCrunch out of thin air. He’s made enemies along the way. He rubs some people the wrong way. But there is no question that the entire space is better because of what he’s built. And there’s also no question that what he’s built needs him.

Could TechCrunch survive without Mike Arrington? Probably. We’re doing so many pageviews now, and the machine is so profitable, that you can plug in other parts and it will run. But without him, it will not be the same. You might not think you’ll miss what he brings, but you will. Quite often, you never even see what he brings. But it permeates the entire site.

If AOL tries to bring in their own Editor-in-Chief to run TechCrunch, it will be a colossal fucking mistake. The old adage: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” — if AOL throws out Mike and tries to install their own despot, it will be breaking it just so they can fix it. And they might not like the end result. It may run, but it will never purr with the precision at which we purr right now.

I can’t believe this is even a possibility. But it is. And so I’m writing this at the eleventh hour to let you, our readers, know before you find out via a press release. I don’t know, maybe I’m hopeful that the collective voice of millions of loyal readers can change a company’s mind. Maybe that’s naive. But it’s worth a shot. We owe that to Mike.

AOL seems to think that by cutting off the biggest conflicts — ones so big that they’d obviously have to be disclosed — that they’ll be a bastion of integrity in the editorial landscape. What a bunch of horse shit. The conflicts we need to worry about are the ones not disclosed. They’re far more prevalent and they do actually deceive readers because they’re far more subtle. But that’s an impossible task. AOL can’t fix that — no one can. So instead they’ll slaughter the lamb everyone can see to gain puffery amongst the old media peers who also live to die another day.

It has almost been exactly one year since AOL acquired us. At the time, they promised not to interfere with the way we do things. For 11+ months, they’ve kept their word, and things have run beautifully from our end. Our business is one of the few sterling ornaments on their mantel. Now they may break their promise to us. And if that promise is broken, it will break TechCrunch.

Update From Mike: Editorial Independence

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.

Thanks to Sharon Kasimow and Pete Ferrara (Product); David Robinson, Monirom Southakaoumar, and Aaron Martin (Design); Umesh Rao and Ravi Pasala (Dev Leads); Mary Li (QA); and Steven Meijer (Project Manager) for their hard work in making this happen.

You can check it out simply by visiting TechCrunch.com on your mobile device (or hit it directly at m.techcrunch.com). And stay tuned: the team tells me there’s more to come, including apps for smartphones and tablets.

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.

Dear Internet, I thought we’ve been over this? If you cite Compete or Alexa for anything other than making fun of them, you’re officially a moron. How bad is their data? Well, in the case of Compete, if you reversed their chart, then it would be much closer to being correct than it currently is. I seriously wonder if they’re tracking anti-visits or some new metaphysical stat I’m not aware of?

TechCrunch will set a new all-time record for traffic this month (both in uniques and pageviews), breaking the previous record — set last month. And that broke the previous record set the month before that. In other words, things are on the up and up. How do I know this? I have the luxury of seeing directly-measured results from both Google Analytics and WordPress.com’s own analytics area. Both confirm that Compete and Alexa are absolutely worthless when it comes to this type of measurement.

I mean seriously, the data from each service is so bad that I’m not clear how either is still operating. I have to cut the stat-searching public some slack because they are two of the only free public tools out there for gauging traffic data. But seriously, you’d be better off just guessing.

Yes, Quantcast is much better, but they have their own issues too, which is why we don’t expose data publicly that way.

The newer Google Trends for Websites seemed to be halfway decent for a while, but in the past year, they’ve also fallen off a cliff in terms of accuracy, it seems. Given that Google never talks about this product any more, I’m going to assume it’s one of many that has fallen into neglect — which is too bad.

As for Alexa, which is owned by Amazon, I have no idea what’s wrong with them. It seems to be more of a landing page for advertisements above all else now.

And yes, I know Compete focuses on U.S. Internet usage. But looking at our charts, that segment of the data is even more inaccurate when compared to reality. Compete has always been rather quiet about the way they actually gather data — and at times, it has sounded rather sketchy — but the fact of the matter remains constant: the data stinks.

But I will give Compete some credit: their data showcasing their own downfall does appear to be fairly accurate, as backed up by comScore.

As for the Quora question itself, I answered it there. Long story short: traffic is up pretty significantly since the redesign. Thanks all!

We’re here at Aol West Coast HQ this morning, getting ready for a jam-packed day pontificating about mobile platforms before our 6th Annual Summer Party at August Capital. Our expert speaker lineup includes former Facebook Developer Joe Hewitt, Soundtracking’s Steve Jang, Tango’s Eric Setton, Foursquare’s Tristan Walker, Kleiner Perkins’ Chi-Hua Chien, and August Capital’s Howard Hartenbaum. Sweet.

Couldn’t buy tickets in time or just too far away from Palo Alto? You can stay on top of all the action with the livestream above (starts at 1 p.m.) and our blog posts throughout the event. Full agenda below.

Mobile First Agenda:

1:00 to 1:15: How Did We Get Here And Where Are We Going
Joe Hewitt, Software Engineer

1:15 to 1:30: Why Mobile First
Omar Hamoui, Churn Labs
Kevin Systrom, CEO Instagram

1:30 to 2:00: Designing The Mobile Experience
Matías Duarte, Director of User Experience, Android
Steve Jang, CEO Schematic Labs/Soundtracking
Jake Mintz, Co-Founder Bump Technologies

2:00 to 2:30: Money Matters
Chi-Hua Chien, Partner Kleiner Perkins
Howard Hartenbaum, Partner August Capital
Eric Setton, Co-Founder Tango
Tristan Walker, Director Business Development, Foursquare

2:30 to 3:00: Break

3:00 to 3:15: Mobile Demos

3:15 to 4:30: Roundtable with all of the above

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.

But honestly guys, seven days and the unwieldy thing is kind of growing on me —  Even if because I have no actually say in what it looks like and better effing get used to it learn how to use it”sink or swim” style (For the record I still don’t like the logo, so there). Other than all the hard work put into it by our team (and it was a lot), what I’m most impressed by is the sheer amount of creativity you guys put into your reactions. From TechCrunch Comments As New Yorker Cartoons to a “Hitler Reacts” video our readers showed us the love/hate.

I’ve complied some of our favorites below.

Some of you creatively interpreted our logo:

Via

Via

Some of you were silly:

Via

Via

And some not so silly (offering genuine suggestions for improvement):

Via

Via

The TCFast people went all out with their New York Times, HackerNews and Google+ inspired versions:

Hilter weighed in:

And so did Crunchgear’s Devin Coldeway:

This Usertesting study of non-TechCrunch readers reactions is also pretty cool, if not as artistic as the stuff readers sent in. Got any more good ones? Email tips@techcrunch.com or include them in the comments, I promise to include the best ones here.

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:

• Jesus christ the new techcrunch looks awful! wow i can’t believe they would launch with it looking the way it does. ugggh.!
• I really hate the redesign, and it’s driving me away from Techcrunch. This is one of my favorite sites, and I tried to work with it, but really have been spending less time here since the change.
• One word Unsubscribed
• Absolutely terrible. The real content is just so burried now. I’d be careful about pissing some faithful readers off with this design.
• What a crap site redesign, TechCrunch layout was better before this new junk, please turn back
• The reputation of TechCrunch is in pretty grave jeopardy, and if I were an advertiser paying $7,500 a month, I’d be asking why the site I’m advertising on is now the black sheep of the design and tech world.
• I really don’t understand why this re-design was needed. I loved the old design better and got used to it. Sometimes companies do a re-design just because some internal frustrated Art Director wants to “do something new”. I wonder how many would drink a new re-designed Coke if they decided to re-design the taste. now seriously, what was wrong before? did anyone complaint about the way the site looked? I personally liked it much better before.
• Maybe it’s because I’m used to the old design, but when I hit the homepage, my eyes don’t know where to go. It’s a bit frustrating.
• The old design was a showcase of how great a website can look, this just looks plain mediocre
• Gotta love how Arrington is beta testing on a live site
• I’m sorry but I think I will only read the feed from now on
• Just gross… looks like something I’d do, not something you hire a pro designer to do
• Violates a lot of traditional usability
• When I read everyone’s comments (and I do, every single one), it makes me hate that techcrunch guy. I mean, really, really hate him.
• For me TechCruch is all about the writing, the opinion and insight behind the headline, and the original format seemed to reinforce that.
• Please I beg you guys put back the old design it was clean and not busy
• The design is ugly. you guys had a great format before
• I miss the old format dearly — that ease of reading the article direct and simple is sorely missed.

The logo has also been harshly criticized:

• Like the new design, but not a fan of the new font used in the logo, bring the old one back!
• Unfortunately, the first logo type was much more elegant.
• PLEASE go back to the old design. I’m not sure why you changed your logo too
• It’s a little too white for my tastes (curse you Google!), and I miss the old TechCrunch logo a little (the new one is growing on me though, so ignore that complaint).
• The only change I don’t like: the logo.

Actually, all these comments are not about the latest TechCrunch redesign. They are earlier reviews to TechCrunch redesigns in 2008 and 2006. The criticism five years ago was so harsh the designer quit and Arrington wrote a post called “I’m an Asshole, and other breaking news.” (Dave, please stay with us!) Compared to those redesigns, the reaction to this one seems pretty mellow.

The website redesign that some commenters really hated 3 years ago turned out to be the same design they are sadly missing today. Some STFU is in order. I have a hunch history will repeat itself with the latest design. And whenever we have our next change, commenters will fondly miss today’s version.

The folks at ZURB have been reviewing TechCrunch redesigns past and present. Here’s their take on the freshly revamped site.

Note: As of now, you can’t see the old comments in the 2008 redesign post. But, we have saved them and hopefully they will re-appear soon.

Here’s a look at our past Designs.
2005

2006

2008

People hate change. People also hate ugly things. It’s up to you to decide what’s been motivating the torrent of redesign hate we’ve received since we decided to change our logo to the Minecraft helicopter or to that Eightbit startup or whatever.

I’ve actually been pretty sick for about two days so I really have no idea what’s going on, except for the fact THAT SOME OF OUR HEADLINES ARE ARBITRARILY SHOUTING NOW and I have to deal with some weird thing on the CMS backend called a “Screamer.” At least we’re still on WordPress.

But you guys are pissed. You know who else is pissed? Hitler, as you can probably glean from the Downfall meme – inspired video above. My favorite part, “I used to love reading TechCrunch. And now I have to soak my eyes in bleach every time.” Close runner up: “Why don’t they just redirect to the Aol homepage?”

Oh and BTW, you guys can stop tipping us that you hate the redesign, we know.

Via: Meemsy

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.

Great work Amos Haviv (and Dalton Ridenhour), you’ve all but ensured that we’ll get no more posts out today as we attempt to make the T fit into the C over and over again. TCTetris is hard.

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.

As Michael Arrington posted on Friday I’m Dave Feldman, and 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 — providing feedback and direction to the design agency (Code & Theory), defining product requirements, understanding TechCrunch’s unusually collaborative editorial process, determining information architecture, and ultimately coordinating the development and launch. Mike asked AOL’s Brad Garlinghouse for a product manager & project lead. He turned to AOL’s head of Consumer Experience, Matte Scheinker (my manager). Matte’s team specializes in “strategic projects” where additional product, design, and/or process expertise is needed. He agreed to take on the project and put me on the case.

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 wanted to give you better context across posts and topics, new ways to slice and dice content so you can dig into what interests you. We get a huge amount of RSS traffic and wanted to keep providing a full experience to those readers too.

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.

The Site

This is a simpler TechCrunch. The carousel of featured posts is gone. In its place are featured articles pinned to the top of the river (look for the little pushpin icon) and features in the header when there’s not an ad. We’ve replaced the chaotic sea of social networking icons with a single, unified Share button. A consistent, site-wide look & feel means less noise distracting you from the content.

We’ve rolled CrunchGear, MobileCrunch, and TechCrunchIT into techcrunch.com/gadgets, techcrunch.com/mobile, and techcrunch.com/enterprise respectively, so it’s easier to reach the articles you want to read. (Some older posts from those sites may disappear for a couple days during the transition, but they’ll be back.) We’ve created richer ways to present articles: as you scan down the home page you’ll see a variety of layouts, each chosen by the author to best represent her work.

Today’s TechCrunch should be a little faster. We’ve built a new codebase from the ground up. We’ve batched HTTP requests, moved API calls server-side, and tinkered with the load order to improve performance. That’s just the beginning: starting next week we’re going to optimize the hell out of this thing.

I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to the recent Gawker redesign — mostly fear that we’d follow their lead. I think we’re all too hard on Gawker: they saw shortcomings in the traditional blog format and decided to try something new, something app-like. They got a lot of things wrong. But the core idea is an intriguing one, and I applaud them for taking the risk. That said, the Gawker approach wasn’t right for TechCrunch. If they ran away from the blog format we doubled down, addressing those same shortcomings by refining and extending it.

The CMS

One of my favorite things about WordPress is its extensibility. We’re on the same platform today as yesterday, but have built new tools for writers and editors. Featured and pinned articles get expiration dates, so editors don’t have to go back and manually un-feature things. Selecting a post layout is as simple as clicking a button. Automated resizing of images means faster load times and fewer distorted photos. And choosing which articles go on the home page is a single-click affair.

The Look & Logo

The new logo is our most controversial change. I love it, though that’s no accident: we went through many, many options with Code & Theory before finding one we liked. It’s bold, simple, and versatile. It works in any context — from a tiny monochrome icon to a mosaic on a poster. It fits the TechCrunch brand perfectly. And no, we didn’t build it in Minecraft. We used AOL Paint, which comes free on the AOL CD and has this sweet UltraLogoMatic2000 feature.

The overall look & feel reflects the bold, sometimes irreverent nature of TechCrunch. It doesn’t hold tea parties in the backyard or hang out with the black turtleneck crowd at the hippest art galleries. It’s a design that breaks more news than its competitors, that loves the code junkies working 22-hour days to build world-changing products. It’s the first and only design Heather, Mike and I looked at and said yeah, that’s it. It screams TechCrunch.

I think of today’s release as a beta. There’s so much more to come: enhanced social features; ways to navigate across articles and dive into topics; new options for viewing posts; better navigation; and improved filtering of content. Even better tools for writers and editors. Vastly improved performance.

Ultimately TechCrunch is about the tech industry, the personalities who cover it, and the readers who track it obsessively. Above all this redesign is about providing the best vehicle for that. We’ll keep enhancing, refining, and revising to get it right. Stay tuned.

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.

I’ll miss the beautiful orange and white color scheme and being able to say we’re a separate entity from the mothership, but I won’t miss the server problems (we always got hand-me-downs) and the rigamarole associated with cross-posting to TC when we figured those guys deserved to see something we wrote. Sticking this all into one big site, with separate channels, makes perfect sense and has nothing to do with the AOL Way. I like to think it’s an evolution of the content and a chance to catch our breath and start writing longer, more detailed posts for TC proper while still maintaining the same quick-hit gadget coverage for TC/G. We’ll keep the CG Twitter account for the time being and probably move to TCGadget (note the missing s) as well. The domain itself will forward and all should be right with the world come Monday or Tuesday.

I know I say this a lot, but you guys are a great audience and you – and you alone – are the main reason we keep waking up morning after morning to write about gadgets. We’ll still be there for you and I hope you’ll be there for us. Good night and good luck.