Arrington Exits TechCrunch; Takes jab at Arianna Huffington
From the TechCrunch conference in San Francisco, this post is brought to you by Alexei Oreskovic and Sarah McBride:
Michael Arrington, one of the most high-profile figures in the world of tech blogging, has lost the TechCrunch soapbox he built. But he’s found a new way to get his point across: T-shirts
Arrington took the stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Monday, moments after parent-company AOL announced that he was no longer part of the company due to his new role heading up a $20 million venture capital fund.
“It’s no longer a good situation for me to stay at TechCrunch,” Arrington said, calling it a sad moment for him and promising to get the controversy out of the way at the start, to avoid distracting from the 3-day conference in San Francisco.
True to form, the pugnacious Arrington unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a t-shirt with the words “unpaid blogger” printed in large letters, a jab at AOL/Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, who had insisted that Arrington was no longer an AOL employee after news of his VC fund surfaced.
“That’s what I’m down to: making statements on fucking T-Shirts. That and Twitter,” Arrington said later, during an on-stage interview with Linked-In co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Hoffman, an investor in the fund, said earlier comments he had made about the connections between the fund and TechCrunch’s closeness to start-ups were interpreted too broadly. “I don’t have any doubts about yours or TechCrunch’s integrity,” he said on stage.
Tech wrap: AOL talking merger with Yahoo?
AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong has reportedly approached private equity firms to gauge interest in a deal with Yahoo that would place Armstrong as the head of the combined company, according to a Bloomberg report.
CNBC later reported that a source close to Yahoo said the company had no interest in a deal with AOL.
AOL shares closed down 5.3 percent at $14.72 while Yahoo inched up 0.3 pct to $14.48.
Both former tech powerhouses have fallen on tough times and Reuters.com columnist John C. Abell says: “It’s impossible to know if anything short of IBM-like reinvention could have altered the course of these two companies so that the music playing now would still be more jazz than dirge.”
In other AOL-related news, Xconomy blogger Wade Roush argues that the “explosion of criticism” over TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s plans to create a startup seed fund has finally convinced Armstrong that “yoking a formal venture fund to a journalistic operation would make the (real or perceived) conflicts wholly unmanageable.”
Apple Inc scored a symbolic legal victory in efforts to keep its lead spot in the tablet computer market when a German court upheld a ban barring Samsung’s local unit from selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablets in Europe’s biggest economy.
A new iPhone application aims to make social networking truly social, with the help of geo-location technology.
Could Google buy Twitter? Ask Arrington, then ask Swisher
******We sprinkled updates into this blog. We’re highlighting them like this.******Thanks to TechCrunch, U.S. tech reporters are about to spend another weekend working instead of playing. UPDATE: Or maybe Kara Swisher at All Things D will save them!******Two sources told proprietor Michael Arrington that Google “is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter.” He wrote:***
We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.
***
Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars, although that was based partially on overvalued Facebook stock. Google would be paying in cash and/or publicly valued stock, which is equivalent to cash. So whatever the final acquisition value might be, it can’t be compared apples-to-apples with the Facebook deal.
***
Why would Google want Twitter? We’ve been arguing for some time that Twitter’s real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn’t even have a horse in the game.
******Later, he updated his entry to say that another source told him talks are at an early stage and could amount to a deal to build a Google real-time search engine. Who knows how this one will shake out. Web operations like Twitter can’t get popular without people starting to fit puzzle pieces together to see which company ought to buy them. That might be why The San Francisco Business Times picked up Wired and Industry Standard founder John Battelle’s blog entry that Twitter would go to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $750 million. Turns out it was an April Fool’s joke.******Then Swisher at All Things D said this:***
Twitter has to (and will) get a lot more than $250M.Robert:I see your story on this topic at http://www.reuters.com/article/technolog yNews/idUSTRE5322A220090403How come you didn’t cross-link to this blog entry? I think that would have been useful to readers who may want to join the discussion on that topic here.
Michael Arrington: Journalist, Lawyer, Self-parodist
TechCrunch publisher and lead writer Michael Arrington got a jump on other April Fool’s pranksters with a Monday, March 31 post entitled “Why We’re Suing Facebook for $25 million in Statutory Damages”
But Arrington gave away the punchline at a news conference at Facebook offices in mid-March, when he surprised other reporters by volunteering how he and his lawyer had thought of suing Facebook for violations to Arrington’s privacy. It was all a big joke, Arrington, formerly a Sillicon Valley lawyer, said at the time.
His Monday post says TechCrunch is filing a lawsuit against Facebook on April 1 seeking $25 million in damages, along with a related civil case for assault and battery and infliction of emotional distress.
“In a round of negotiations over the lawsuit with Facebook led by Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, things got out of hand. When our team of lawyers offered to settle for a mere $50 million, Kelly told me Facebook would “bury you and bury your crappy blog” if we filed the suit. He then threw his steaming hot triple soy latte espresso at me, which caused extensive second degree burns over the top half of my body. Later on, he also unfriended me.”
For the record, here is a transcript of the actual March 18 conversation that grew out of a discussion over the controversy on Facebook’s Beacon:
Arrington: “Is there anyway for users to say I don’t not want my image to promote social ads?”
Facebook VP of Product Management Matt Cohler: “There is a social add shut-off. It is an opt-out (privacy setting).”
Arrington: “Okay, so I can now stop endorsing BlockBuster movie clips, if I choose to? … It is an opt-out, not an opt-in?”
(Another reporter jumped in with a related question, then Arrington continued).
Arrington: “Do you feel as though you are on sort of on very poor legal ground with this?” referring to Beacon.
Cohler: “No, I don’t. I feel like we are on fine legal ground. To be perfectly frank.”
Arrington: “This is awesome. Actually, it’s something that is going to cost too much. My attorney wanted to sue you guys. And we are not going to sue you because I think you would (fight) it.”
Cohler: “Well, thank you.”
Arrington: “What we (Michael and his lawyer) talked about was … creating sort of a fake lawsuit (and posting it on TechCrunch). But it was going to cost too much. It was going to cost about $15 grand. But he’s like, ‘It’s an open shut case…’”
Facebook privacy officer and legal counsel Chris Kelly cut in: “Under what legal theory?”
Arrington: “California and New York privacy rights, where you are using my image and name without my permission.”
Kelly: “The terms of services are very clear on that….We have the permission that is required under those laws.” … Cohler later asked Arrington: “Is TechCrunch not working out too well for you?”
Well I don’t know where to start so i am only going to say a few things
1. Michael Arrington you are going mad/nuts.
2. Why sue facebook your would have better chance suing your self.
3. Your tech site is suffering from all this stupid news.
If you haven’t seen his departure speech at techcrunch disrupt, here is a summary: http://srml.in/i9WpS/.