Crunch time

October 1, 2010 4:48 AM

TechCrunch has been bought by AOL for between $25 and $60 million . Just in time, because Techcrunch founder Mike Arrington works too hard.
posted by twoleftfeet (38 comments total)

I don't understand how AOL is still in business, and I've never understood it.
posted by empath at 5:13 AM on October 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Worked for Time Warner ... oh.
posted by bright cold day at 5:13 AM on October 1, 2010

AOL still has money? I thought that they'd gone back to the garage.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:20 AM on October 1, 2010

A company I thought was dead buys a company I wish were dead. America, what a country!
posted by tommasz at 5:25 AM on October 1, 2010 [9 favorites]

Aol. (yes, the upper-lower case combination and the punctuation are part of the name) is a web advertising firm.

Aol has two main revenue streams - their legacy dial-up ISP business, and their advertising business. The ISP business is their cash-cow; it costs them next to nothing to run and it still brings in a ton of money but it's declining. They know that, and that it's inevitable. Meantime, they are ramping up their web advertising business. They have made some acquisitions over the years (eg advertising.com), and web advertising is their growth business.

They also produce a lot of content, and they have partnerships with other content providers and portal players, all, ultimately, in the service of delivering more impressions to their advertising customers.

TechCrunch is the newest of their content businesses.
posted by kcds at 5:44 AM on October 1, 2010 [6 favorites]

Who broke the story?
posted by sfts2 at 6:01 AM on October 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

The ISP business is their cash-cow; it costs them next to nothing to run and it still brings in a ton of money but it's declining. They know that, and that it's inevitable.

Yeah a friend of mine was an engineer on the ISP side of things for about decade and he finally took a buy-out recently to move on. He said there wasn't much left there.

The ISP I work at also has about...*checks server*... 3000 people online via modem at any given time. Hardly anyone here even knows how the modem server works any more, I don't think.

It's really kind of amazing sometimes how fast technology moves in telecom. Our entire dial-up ISP business is running on a couple of rack mounted servers the size of desktop PCs.

We've got a bunch of legacy telephone switches that takes up a room that's maybe the size of a suburban back yard. We replaced the entire thing with one or two rack mounted servers.
posted by empath at 6:10 AM on October 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

That feature on Mike Arrington is really fascinating. On one hand he seems to come off as this totally aloof and almost stereotypical geek. On the other hand, you kind of get the sense that, no, he chooses to appear this way because he's okay with being selective about what he spends his time on and is over the phase of wanting to please everyone. The seemingly absolute refusal to conform to social niceties is really quite intriguing.
posted by Phire at 6:19 AM on October 1, 2010

At least it's not as bad as when eBay bought Skype.
posted by wierdo at 7:04 AM on October 1, 2010

That feature on Mike Arrington is really fascinating.

Well, in a way that 'Wow, what a wanker' is intrigue...
posted by i_cola at 7:28 AM on October 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Aol. (yes, the upper-lower case combination and the punctuation are part of the name) is a web advertising firm.

Aol has two main revenue streams - their legacy dial-up ISP business, and their advertising business. The ISP business is their cash-cow; it costs them next to nothing to run and it still brings in a ton of money but it's declining. They know that, and that it's inevitable.

I think like 40% of their revenue comes from Dailup still.

Remember when they scammed time-Warner in to getting bought for stock pretty much after the dot-com collapse? Or right at the peak? That probably kept them going for a long time.

AOL owns engadget, they've shown they can manage popular blogs, so I don't think this will be too problematic of an arrangement. I wonder if they have some kind of contract with Arrington. Regular non-competes aren't legal in California, but I wonder if that counts for people who sell their business. It would be funny if he just started up a new blog.
posted by delmoi at 7:36 AM on October 1, 2010

Well, in a way that 'Wow, what a wanker' is intrigue...

Didn't seem all that wankery to me. Can you explain more?
posted by josher71 at 7:53 AM on October 1, 2010

Aol. (yes, the upper-lower case combination and the punctuation are part of the name) is a web advertising firm.

Incorrect. "Aol." is the brand mark. The name of the company (and how it is referred to in written form), is AOL.
posted by rulethirty at 7:59 AM on October 1, 2010

I use a Mac with two 24-inch monitors, and I’ll do research on one screen and write on the other. It’s more efficient. I’d love to have three monitors, but Macs support only two.

I love how he includes that little justification. It's completely unnecessary, and also factually incorrect. Perhaps his particular Mac (if it's an iMac) only supports two, but for some reason he makes a universal claim for the entire platform.

Then he says he has the exact same setup in his other office.

So you bought tools that you incorrectly think don't do what you'd like... twice?
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 8:03 AM on October 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Isn't Arrington reknown for almost always being dead wrong? I'm pretty sure he's one of Daring Fireball's main sources of amusement.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:22 AM on October 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Aol.

That spelling suggests you should say it like a word, like Radar or Scuba.

What I'm basically trying to say here is that I'm sat at my desk right now going "Aaaorul? Aaooowwwl? Awwwl?" out loud.
posted by dudekiller at 8:25 AM on October 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Michael Arrington is a bad person.
posted by basicchannel at 8:34 AM on October 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Michael Arrington is a bad person.

I came to this conclusion after reading the "Women don't want to be entrepreneurs so shut up" article.
posted by almostmanda at 8:48 AM on October 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Maybe it’s not fair, but I see the world in black and white.

An elegant self-summary.

AOL has restructured in interesting and very ambitious ways. They've spent the last decade rebranding themselves by founding and acquiring a very, very wide range of niche websites, from ParentDish to PopEater to TMZ to Black Voices to PawNation to Styleist to SlashFood to AisleDash to Moviefone, etc. etc. There's clearly been a very focused method to their madness. It's been rather fascinating to watch them transform themselves into a successful content/story-generating news organization and home on the web for people with specialized interests. So it's not surprising that AOL would want to add TechCrunch under that umbrella.
posted by zarq at 8:48 AM on October 1, 2010

There is also an interesting backstory here about the fallout between Arrington and Jason Calacanis over the TechCrunch conference they co-founded and Arrington's well-timed move to Seattle (we currently have no state income tax here in WA). This is the best recap I've found.
posted by donovan at 8:57 AM on October 1, 2010

Who broke the story?

Om Malik.
posted by GuyZero at 9:18 AM on October 1, 2010

Didn't seem all that wankery to me. Can you explain more?

Techcrunch's take on "journalism" runs rather close to "making shit up", as far as many people are concerned. Many instances of them running flimsy rumour scandal type nonsense, with the most lurid headline possible, essentially trolling for clicks (ad impressions), that turned out to be untrue or at least highly distorted/sensationalised. There was also this kerfuffle about them stealing someone's tablet concept, or someone stealing theirs, or both. I wasn't there, so of course I can't be definitive who was in the fault with that. Nonetheless, on the "no smoke without fire" principle, I've seen too much nonsense assocatied with Techcrunch to take them seriously, or even follow links to their 'stories' anymore. It's like that person who professes to hate "drama", whilst generating vast amounts of it at every turn. Maybe they're sometimes an honest victim but sooner or later you're going to file them under "drama magnet" and start to ignore them.

How much that really speaks to the question of Arrington's alleged wankership as an individual I don't know. Not at all, I suppose. Possibly goes some way to explaining the general tone of the thread.
posted by Slyfen at 9:26 AM on October 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

I wrote a FPP on AOL's increased "content creation", including the fact that they were hiring a lot of (skilled) journalists who were being laid off by other journalism companies. AOL has been shifting for a while, with a new "dynamic" logo as some signal of that.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:06 AM on October 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I use a Mac with two 24-inch monitors, and I’ll do research on one screen and write on the other. It’s more efficient. I’d love to have three monitors, but Macs support only two.

I love how he includes that little justification. It's completely unnecessary, and also factually incorrect. Perhaps his particular Mac (if it's an iMac) only supports two, but for some reason he makes a universal claim for the entire platform.

Well put. As far back as 1987 you could run 6 monitors on a Mac II if you had 6 NuBus cards installed. And I'm running three displays on my office Aluminum iMac using this USB->DVI adapter.
posted by porn in the woods at 10:17 AM on October 1, 2010

Isn't Arrington reknown for almost always being dead wrong? I'm pretty sure he's one of Daring Fireball's main sources of amusement.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:22 AM on October 1 [+] [!]

I believe he's primarily known now for selling his company for SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS.

Sad that there is no clear correlation between accuracy and market capitalization.
posted by mecran01 at 10:43 AM on October 1, 2010

Haters gonna hate.
posted by d1rge at 11:27 AM on October 1, 2010

Haters gonna hate.

This meaningless phrase is used constantly here on the blue, and it's as meaningless in this context as ever.

Who's the hater here? People who don't like AOL, people who don't like Arrington, people who think the deal is foolish, or Arrington himself?

IOW- If you have something to say... SPIT. IT. THE. FUCK. OUT.
posted by coolguymichael at 11:40 AM on October 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sad that there is no clear correlation between accuracy and market capitalization.

But there is a correlation between market capitalization and making a ton of money. So, uh, good for him, cause I doubt "accuracy" was his long-term goal.
posted by meowzilla at 12:08 PM on October 1, 2010

Haters gonna hate people saying haters gonna hate.
posted by haveanicesummer at 12:27 PM on October 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oh, if only Asshat Arrington would take the money and just Go. The. Fuck. Away. How he gained any credibility whatsoever with Eric Schmidt's dick down his throat like that is beyond me...
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 12:33 PM on October 1, 2010

Aol just wanted the CrunchPad so they could get into the tablet content delivery business.
posted by MikeMc at 12:45 PM on October 1, 2010

Haters gonna hate.
posted by d1rge at 11:27 AM on October 1 [+] [!]

Not at the big kids table, dummy.
posted by basicchannel at 2:52 PM on October 1, 2010

Haters gonna hate.

This meaningless phrase is used constantly here on the blue, and it's as meaningless in this context as ever.

It's not meaningless, and in this case it's kind of vague. The notion is that people who dislike Product X or Point of View Y will continue to speak their mind in the same way. Shorthand for "this is the same dissent as before," but with a sharper edge ("hater" comes across more strongly than "someone not impressed by").
posted by filthy light thief at 3:47 PM on October 1, 2010

Who knew that AOL had $60 million lying around?
posted by Yakuman at 4:33 AM on October 2, 2010

How he gained any credibility whatsoever with Eric Schmidt's dick down his throat like that is beyond me...

Please don't do that.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:22 AM on October 2, 2010

filthy light thief wrote: "It's not meaningless"

Perhaps not devoid of all meaning, but content-free and pretty damn annoying, especially when it's wielded by some rabid fan of a product/service/person/whatever against someone trying to have a cogent discussion about said product/service/person/whatever.

Basically, saying that instantly makes a person look like a blithering idiot to me.
posted by wierdo at 11:09 AM on October 2, 2010

It's not meaningless, and in this case it's kind of vague. The notion is that people who dislike Product X or Point of View Y will continue to speak their mind in the same way. Shorthand for "this is the same dissent as before," but with a sharper edge ("hater" comes across more strongly than "someone not impressed by").

If you're going to say something along the lines of "haters gonna hate", at least class it up a little.

Odisse odientibus est esse.
posted by kenko at 4:48 PM on October 2, 2010

Watch this happen live on stage: Hi Haters!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:10 PM on October 4, 2010