And speaking of Michael
photo credit: Dave Winer
I know I've said it before, but we discussed this a little after our interview on TalkCrunch. Munjal and I totally agree that TechCrunch has been instrumental in Riya's success.
Truly...what is wild about this is that, before I even started at Riya and before Mike lived in the Valley...we had met through the blogosphere. I wasn't the only one who 'discovered' TechCrunch, but I knew it was going to be big. There was something...special...about what Mike was doing and how he was doing it. So, we emailed back and forth. I was kind of like a TechCrunch aggregator - almost every company Mike posted about, I would test and talk about here.
Then I got the job at Riya and, of course, Mike was the very first person I told.
And I knew that this was significant, but until I sat staring at one million + uploads in the first day of Riya's launch, I had no clue how much. (I'd say that 90% of our alpha/beta requests came from TechCrunch directly or indirectly)
Thanks Mike. You rock. What you've done for technology entrepreneurs is uber amazing.
[tags: techcrunch, michaelarrington, techcrunchrocks]
4 Comments:
Hey Tara, I have got to say, Riya has got to be one of the FEW genuine innovatons on the net at the moment. There are undoubtedly lots of "good ideas" but which simply allow us to do things online that we traditionally wold keep on our desktop. The learning feature is great and, well...anyway, you know how good it is!
My reason for posting is to question really, the morality of plugging and promoting a site via blogs - however Pinko it may be. As we all saw the Edelman/Wal-Mart/Rubel topic go haywire a few weeks ago, was the move to promote Riya via Techncrunch one that was a no-brainer or did the purist argument of blogs for blogging create a dilemma for you at launch?
Hmmmm...yeah.
Well, I like to say that there always have to be two things that underly a Pinko strategy that have to be in place before anything else:
1. You have to help your community members kick ass (true love)
2. You have to be doing it for the right reasons (true heart)
With Riya, we are working on #1 and definitely have #2 (I wouldn't work here if we didn't). I think that anyone could exploit Pinko principles...and between you and me and the rest of my blog readers, I think Chevy Tahoe did...and with great success (they are now some sort of darlings in the blogosphere). I think others will follow.
I'm hoping that people get to the point that they can easily sniff those out. Right now, we're at a point in the blogosphere's existence that we still need validation. So, we say, "Yay! Walmart is blogging! That means we are right!" When we are more sure of ourselves, I don't know if big companies blogging will make that much of an impact.
Does that answer your question?
I'm..."special". :-)
Thanks for the post Tara.
- Mike, TechCrunch
Hi Tara, yes, you hit the nail on the head with your number 2 point - putting your heart into it. I guess if you put love into something, it is naturally more genuine - and ultimately comes out more sincerely and therefore any appearance of "forced" promotion is well and truly hidden.
I agree equally with the validation point too. I guess there is a natural changing wave of opinion on many issues surrounding blogging. First came the online diarists who saw their blogosphere "hijacked" by commerical types which has now been taken up by corporations.
For me, blogging will find its feet when there are clear "definitions" of blog types so that each finds its own place in the blogosphere and individuals understand the purpose and origins of any particular blog they are reading/writing - but then again, is that not the point at which blogging becomes an overused tool and we have all moved on to something else (video podcasting with searchable content?!)
p.s. LOVED the Pinko presentation - unique, visual, impactful...a picture says a thousand words (although I would have loved to get my hands on the actual presentation notes to help fill in a few gaps!)
Thanks for taking the time to respond!
And for the record...Techcrunch is in my top 3 frequented blogs! Good work Michael, and you'd never know which one of you in the picture was the multi-billionaire!!
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