Forget all the news coming from Iran, there’s real excitement on TechMeme: the unboxing of the CrunchPad prototype, posted on Youtube by Loic Le Meur:
I hate to say this.. but I think what we’re seeing here is Prototype C, the previous version, not the final, Launch prototype. Compare the photos and decide for yourself.
Given how I am waiting for the CrunchPad myself, I’d be happy to be proven wrong this time…
(Cross-posted from CloudAve)
Tags: crunchpad, situational device, situational hardware, tablet, techcrunch, xref
CrunchPad – It’s Real. Beautiful. I Want One.
Technology June 3rd, 2009
I admit I was skeptical when Mike Arrington first announced he wanted to build a lightweight Web Tablet. But a few month later we saw the first prototype, which was not particularly attractive – but real. Mea Culpa, I was wrong.
The second prototype was already quite likable, albeit not as sexy as as the original sketch. Today Mike @ Techcrunch announced that the final prototype is just weeks away- and although all he now has are conceptual drawings, if the real thing is anywhere close .. OMG.. OMG.. it’s absolutely sexy
Tags: crunchpad, e-paper, e-reader, ebook, kindle, netbooks, situational device, situational hardware, tablet, techcrunch, xref
Mike Arrington Spit-Attack – He Joins Elite Company
Misc January 28th, 2009
Image by jdlasica via Flickr
Disturbing news this morning: TechCrunch Founder Mike Arrington was about to leave the DLD Conference (hey, Eran, where’s your review?) when a stranger approached him, deliberately spat in his face and disappeared in the crowd.
This is as lowly as it gets. It’s also very cowardly. TechCrunch covers a lot of companies and people, some positively, some negatively, others not at all, which can hurt… and Mike does get occasionally abrasive, but does not go into personal attacks.
Anyone who has issues with Mike him can bring it up publicly, in a civilized manner. With zero barrier of entry to blogging, Twitter..etc there is no excuse not to do so.
Mike Arrington is now taking some time off, not only because of the spit-attack, but also to reflect on earlier threats on his and his family’s life and security.
What happened today is a despicable act, not to be taken lightly. I am not making fun of it either … but perhaps to cheer Mike up, I must point out that he is now in a Very Elite Club, where his fellow members are none other but Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
We probably all remember how Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer received the egg treatment in Budapest last year:
But I suspect some of my readers are too young to recall that ten years before the Ballmer-incident, Microsoft Founder Bill Gates received a full cream-pie in his face on a visit to Belgium:
(Cross-posted from CloudAve. To stay on top of Cloud Computing news, analysis and just our opinion, grab the CloudAve Feed here.)
Related posts:
- Life Threatened, Spat On, TechCrunch’s Arrington Takes Leave
- Michael Arrington Takes a Break After Death Threat and Spit Attack
- Mike’s mood improves when Paulo Coelho arrives
Tags: bill gates, egg-throwing, gates creampie, microsoft, mike arrington, prank, protest, spit-attack, steve ballmer, techcrunch
How I Beat TechCrunch for the Second Time
Blogging January 22nd, 2009
First time I beat TechCrunch was in July 2006:
…their Feedburner subscription base grew almost 100% overnight. But it pales in comparison to my 2.5million % growth rate … yes, I went from 200 or so to 51k. Jeff Clavier did quite well, too, at 56k, but hey Jeff, I am catching up!
Too bad it was due to a Netvibes glitch, and once they fixed it, my readership fell back to – well, normal levels.
Today I am winning again: TechCrunch has 0 –yes zero – subscribers, while I have 1141. 
This time the culprit is Feedburner, which chucked the subscriber stats to zero for many blogs, including TechCrunch, while I lucked out, and only “lost” about half my subscribers. Over @ CloudAve we were less lucky, the migration to Google’s new setup cost about 85% of our subscriber base, but that still beats zero…
Yet it’s a Pyrrhic victory, which I hope won’t last – Feedburner (Google) needs to pull their act together.
Tags: blog feeds, blog stats, Blogging, feedburner, Google, rss, techcrunch
CrunchPad: a Keyboard-less Netbook
Technology January 19th, 2009
I admit I was skeptical when Mike Arrington first announced he wanted to build a lightweight Web Tablet. Skeptical partly because I had just witnessed Ismael Ghalimi of the Office 2.0 fame feverishly work on the Redux Model 1. I had been doubtful about his effort, too, but his energy level was just radiating, he actually convinced me, I started to believe… But in the end, all the effort (and quite some money Ismael spent along the way) came down to nothing, he nuked the device, and the Office 2.0 Conference gadget became an HP 2133 Mini-Note PC.
Fast-forward half a year, and TecCrunch is showing off a prototype. Granted, it’s not as cool-looking as the initial sketch above, but this one is working.
Tags: crowdsourcing, crunchpad, device-independent computing, fablet, mobility, multi-touch, netbooks, situational devices, tablet, techcrunch, touch screen
Crunchies 2008: Whatever Happened to Startups?
Startups January 12th, 2009
There were two Golden Globes ceremonies this weekend: one for movies, and one for Technology. The latter, the Crunchies took place in San Francisco
At the first Crunchies I asked: whatever happened to business software?
This year the question is: whatever happened to startups?
Tags: awards, crunchies, gigaom, golden globe, innovation, silicon valley, Startups, techcrunch, Technology, venturebeat
Turn the Doom-talk into Constructive Business Model Ideas
Startups October 12th, 2008
Image via Wikipedia
TechCrunch Turns Into F**kedCompany 2.0 – says Dare Obasanjo.
Really? Tell me something I don’t already know. Have we all forgotten that TechCrunch acquired FuckedCompany.com over a year ago? OK, that was just an April Fool’ s Joke , but you can really say TC is unprepared for a downturn – after all, they own FuckedCrunch.
OK, on a more serious note: I also said, way back in January 2007 that TechCrunch Did Not Build it; It Can’t Knock it Down Either:
TechCrunch did not build this boom. Yes, a well-timed review helps a startup gain initial traction, but Mike does not make those companies successful: whether they make it or not, they do so on their own. And when they fail, they fail own their own merits, too. Failures are part of business reality, and reporting on them only makes TechCrunch balanced. Without it Mike would be just a biased cheerleader (something he was accused of in the past).
I still mean what I said there, except that in the downturn there will clearly be more failures, and it won’t always be on a startup’s “own merits”. Reporting on them is part of reality.
But what I really hope for is that TechCrunch and other influential blogs that are a strong part of the startup ecosystem will take a constructive approach, and instead of becoming doom-reporters they start discussing ways of survival – i.e. how to tweak one’s business model to establish a healthy revenue stream.
I’ll have more on this soon.
Update: I’m often amazed at the image selection Zemanta proposes. The word “train” does not once occur in my post, yet it recommended this image of a train-wreck.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e687654d-e89b-4343-9024-a286bbbba726)
Tags: Blogging, business model, fuckedcompany, recession, revenue, Startups, techcrunch
3-year Old Millionaires
Blogging, Collaboration, Personal Productivity, SaaS September 17th, 2008
No, not talking about babies here, but two Tech icons who both reached the Million milestone around their third birthday.
TechCrunch, launched 3-year ago as Mike Arrington’s hobby blog had 1 million Feedburner subscribers for the first time last week. Of course it’s no longer a hobby blog, but a blog network run by a professional CEO, supported by a growing blogger team. Mike himself has become a Silicon Valley institution, his Atherton home Web 2.0 Central.
Congratulations, Mike! And Congrat’s to the other 3-year old millioinaire: Zoho.
When Zoho Writer launched three years ago it was the underdog compared to Writely (which later became Google Docs). But it improved week by week, was soon joined by Zoho Sheet, and one had to be blind not to 
see the benefits of a complete Suite on the Net. Today Zoho has a million users, is recognized as a leader along with Google, has made inroads to the Enterprise (400K users at GE? Not bad…), The Economist calls them the force that will Deflate IT… a lot of achievements in three years.
Once again, congratulations to both… and now the race is on: who will reach the 2 Million mark first?
Tags: Blogging, cloud computing, Collaboration, Google, millionaire, office 2.0, SaaS, techcrunch, web 2.0, web office, zoho
DemoCrunch 2008
Bay Area, Social Networking, Startups April 2nd, 2008
This year’s TechCrunch 50 Conference is planned to coincide with DemoFall, the (other) premium startup Launch event.
VentureBeat attempts to (well, sort of) explain it with scheduling, but make no mistake, this is a fairly open move against DemoFall, to establish TechCrunch50 as the premier startup launch event. There’s no question that TechCrunch can pull in just about the entire VC community – in fact given the audience pricing, $2000 early bird, and $3000 regular, it’s hard to believe anyone but VCs can afford to attend. Well, VCs and students, as those with a student ID can get in for $149.
The presenting companies will not be charged – that’s a huge differentiate vs. Demo. As I said before, you almost have to be already funded to be able to afford Demo’s fees. I leave it to you to decide which one is more startup-friendly.
Of course they want a real launch show, so the one hard condition is that your product /service will have to be new (unseen) at the Conference. Several commenters are already complaining that they are launching before September, which automatically disqualifies them.
I have a solution for you “early birds”: come join us at Launch: Silicon Valley 2008 jointly presented by SVASE and Garage Technology Ventures. Five of last year’s 29 presenters received venture funding, in aggregate of $30M. That’s not $140M, but not too shabby, either
.
How to participate? If by June 10th, 2008 (the day of the event) you will have a product or service available, but have not been out in the marketplace for more than a few months, then send an Executive Summary of no more than 2 pages to Launchsv@svase.org. Submission deadline: May 9th, 2008. (Garage Technology offers a useful Writing a Compelling Executive Summary guide.) Last year’s 30 (actually, 29) presenting startups were selected from 170 submissions. For details – and attendee registration – check out http://www.launchsiliconvalley.org/.
See you there!
Related posts: bub.blicio.us, Valleywag, Jason Calacanis, SheGeeks, ValleyWag, News.com, Silicon Alley Insider, : WinExtra, CenterNetworks, mathewingram.com/work, BoomTown, The Drama 2.0 Show, Geek Gestalt, /Message
Tags: Art of the Start, auto repair, business events, DealMakerMedia, Demo, demofall, entrepreneurship, Garage.com, guy kawasaki, IBDNetwork, launch silicon valley, microsoft, Pleasanton, product showcase, SDForum, silicon valley, Social Networking, startup pitch, Startups, SVASE, techcrunch, techcrunch40, techcrunch50, Under the Radar, UtR, vc, vc Funding, venture Capital
TechCrunch in the Toilet
Humor, Startups March 7th, 2008
No, I am not implying that TechCrunch is bankrupt, or heading into their own Deadpool. TC has all the signs of doing just fine, with 700K subscribers and loads of advertisers. But they are in the toilet, nevertheless – at least in a certain toilet.
Online file-sharing and collaboration startup Box.net is changing the ancient habit of reading your newspaper in the toilet. (Frankly I never understood this habit, personally I prefer getting out of there as soon as possible, but for many people it’s a true ritual.) The company, which just a year ago was 4 guys cramped together in a two-bedroom live-and-work apartment has grown to 20 employees and picked up two rounds of funding. Flush with VC money, they equipped their restroom with a flat screen that shows an auto-refreshing display of technology news from TechCrunch. No more newspaper in the bathroom!
I can’t help but wonder about the screen position though. For all I know, this is only for the guys’ entertainment, gals usually face the other way – is Box.net still an all-male team? And, without getting into the very material details, even we boys only perform one “operation” facing that way.., and that’s normally the quicker one. (?)
Aaron, care to clarify? 
Tags: box.net, Collaboration, Humor, online storage, techcrunch, web office, web storage
Zoli Erdos
