TechCrunch/KillerStartups

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch writes about the effect of TechCrunch articles on the startups they showcase.   Two points he brings up:

  1. The stories often bring down the sites due to heavy traffic.
  2. The traffic is “shallow” and tapers off after a few weeks.

What this signifies in my opinion is that people are curious as to what’s happening in the technology startup world but not necessarily looking to use many of the services that are talked about (unless they are really compelling).  Instead, they digest the articles as they would The New York Times.  I suspect that similar websites (like Read/Write Web and Mashable) face the same problem.

I discovered KillerStartups  a few days ago after reading a post about them on franticindustries.  A RSVC (read, submit, vote, comment) website like Digg, I think this is the kind of “feature” TechCrunch and similar news sites really need to create a different kind of value – allow research to develop through the community.   They have the reader base to launch something like this fairly easily and I’m sure we’d learn a lot about where to focus entrepreneurial talent.  That being said – the Techcrunch reader base is very techie (read: early adopter) so I’m not sure whether results would be representative of a wider audience.

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Published:
03.11.07 / 4pm
Category:
Entrepreneurship, Other Stuff