DISQUS

Jason Calacanis, 1.5 successful startups
Michael Arrington, 0 successful startups
Robert Scoble, 0 successful startups
Dave Winer, 0 successful startups

I'd rather hear from people like Marc Andreessen, Ev Williams, etc.

Right, because the comments section of TechCrunch is a real bastion of intellectual discourse.

It just shows that one of the major strengths of mainstream media is not the actual journalists, but the infrastructure around them. Without an editor or even a newsroom, you don't have the ability to show something to someone and say "does this make sense", or "anyone got any good info on this competitor to the firm I'm writing about"?

Journalism and blogging have their strengths and weaknesses, but to pretend that just because it's the same guy it's the same thing is disingenuous.

I don't think you really owed anyone an apology. The problem with your post is that you're asking for something which currently doesn't exist-- stuff written with insight, precision, and accuracy but written with immediacy and several times a day. I don't think it possible to churn out as much content as Techcrunch does and actually "get the story" in the traditional sense-- or at least do it on the budget even a big blog has to work with.

I too am constantly annoyed with the lack of depth on most business blogs, and the lack of speed in traditional publications. Perhaps when the ad dollars finally move to the web in earnest, they'll be able to put together staffs with enough knowledge to actually get to the heart of the story, and call a spade a spade.

If the numbers are true about revenue, then it would seem that Like.com is indeed slaughtering ThisNext.com, which as far as I can tell doesn't have enough traffic to get that type of revenue and doesn't seem to be monetizing very well in other ways.

However that might be complete speculation on both my part and on the Like.com CEO's. What's more worrying for ThisNext.com is that they did not see a rise in December, which for any retailer (even a meta-retailer) is an absolute must. This tells me that their traffic may be more incidental then purposeful. Create enough landing pages in the right areas, and you can get lots of traffic online, however if the majority if it is not useful for the user, ultimately the site will not be able to capture value. The lack of a rise in December makes me wonder if this is in fact the case.

Seesmic is awesome but I predict you won't regret your non-investment. Unless you are insanely wealthy, and I don't think you are, it wouldn't have been a smart move.

Blogs link to the New York Times. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. And thus we can see one of the central problems of the NYT as an organization. They prosper on the web, but they haven't flourished. I think they may get there, but not until they open up.

Another california voter for Obama

The man has actually made my family closer. My father voted for Bush, twice, much to the horror of my mother, sisters, and brother. I've been voting libertarian for years, and my sisters and mother voted for a Democrat in each of the last 4 elections.

Now, the entire family has found someone that really inspires them. Never, ever, thought it would happen or that Dad would EVER support someone who might raise his taxes :)

Personally, I stopped reading Mashable about 6 months ago. They cover everything, from the most interesting to the least interesting stories, and the writers generally aren't knowledgeable enough to actually add anything to the story. At least 1/2 of the stories are just rewritten press releases.