Fine Print

Among the many blogs I subscribe to, I have a fondness for The Drama 2.0 Show. It is an irreverent take on “spiking the Web 2.0 kool aid” and making sure we all keep things in perspective. Yesterday they posted about former TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley, who left the tech blog to set up his own, called The Inquisitr. (BTW, why did we stop spelling things correctly in Web 2.0?)

Riley posted some screenshots of his inbox allegedly showing e-mails from TechCrunch writers asking for their stories to be “dugg” so they appeared on the front page of Digg. Riley says he’s “no longer loved” by TechCrunch, but they still asked him to vote for their stuff.

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who cares? A lot of dirty laundry and tit for tat postings fly back and forth between the major bloggers, and today’s spat is tomorrow’s virtual fish and chip paper.

But, the one thing that surprised me is why does a successful, established site such as TechCrunch need to ask people to help them push their exposure on sites such as Digg? Is there some desperation there somewhere, or declining traffic/revenue?

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~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada