DomainTools Blog

When Michael Arrington started his blog, it had a simple scorecard type layout, a sort of “Just the Facts” type thing. It never really developed, and in fact it has completely disappeared. We took a look at his earliest reviews like Qumana, Vskype, SNOCAP, Odeo, and Deli.cio.us, and we miss the scorecard layout. Techcrunch has become a lot more free form and loose on how and what it reports on. It was exclusively dedicated to “Tracking Web 2.0″, but the site has generally morphed into covering tech “Start-Ups” or anything that Google does (44 entries in company index, last I checked Google was one company). It now covers a number of off the web type things like Free 411 phone number services, Registry fees, Rumors, and Downtime reports. Michael did a wise thing when he started - he didn’t name his blog Web20Crunch.com & picked a generic domain name. Websites that pigeon hole themselves into a name are doomed to that category. Amazon is a good example, they chose a generic word that had the context of the largest river in the world. Amazon is not pigeon holed into only selling books.

One of the later feature of Michael’s blog is to always include a picture in the upper left or right hand corner. I borrowed this concept when I started this corporate blog - it holds the readers attention when users are scrolling through all their RSS feeds. Men are visual people and eye candy helps us stay interested. Arrington’s audience is 95% 20-45 year old men, so he needs a lot of visuals to keep their attention. I would freely give this advise to anyone with a blog.

Michael should go back to the basics, gather the facts, write a rich review, and call it a day. A table in the upper or lower corner of the article with the basic facts would be great. Don’t get me wrong, I like the articles, but those basic facts are gems. Small things I would also correct would be tagging people names in the “Just the Facts” box, it would be nice to find what other projects a person or investor was involved with. Screenshots are cool, but more then three and I hit the next button in my RSS feed reader.

• Location: Vancouver, BC
• Launched: June 13, 2005
• Status: Private Beta
• What is it? wysiwyg blog editor
• Features:
• Screen Shots:
• Corporate Information:
• Management:
• Investors:
• Relevant Links:

This blog post is a response to Arrington’s challenge to point out things TechCrunch could be doing better. Last time I tried to give Mike advice, he interrupted me mid-sentence and told me, “My advice is don’t give people advice”. Then he walked away. Ouch! Later, he apologized because a former colleague relayed the advice and he thought it was a pretty good tip. So here is some more advice, Mike, Please bring back the “Just the Facts” information.