Mike Arrington: Bobblehead or (3)Bubble Head?
04.04.07
Warning: Unusually mean stuff coming. Do you remember the ajax chat plug-in for blogs that launched a year ago February called 3Bubbles? I didn't think so; unless you watch every new app closely or follow the work of old school advisor types, you probably couldn't have cared less over the last year about 3Bubbles. "3bubbles is going to be wildly popular with bloggers," Michael Arrington wrote in his review when the company launched. Wrong! Though Arrington's pied piper blog post led 40 other bloggers to link to his review, 3Bubbles today looks like a cold fish. The company's blog, linked to on the front page, hasn't been updated in 9 months! That's slower than TechCrunch posts in the morning! They didn't even post about John Edwards using the service, though there's a badge on the front page. John Edwards uses such an excessive number of Web 2.0 apps that if yours is on the list - odds are it's not going anywhere.
Arrington was concerned that 3Bubbles might not be able to handle the massive traffic influx headed its way. He forgot to mention in the post that that traffic was likely to be dispersed across Mebo, Gabbly, InCircles, GeeSee and goodness knows how many other services just like this that launched in 2006! Man oh man did that guy give me a hard time when I worked for him if I gushed about someone without mentioning any competitors! Maybe he was just got distracted by all the players and lost his head in enthusiasm!
Why the hostility? TechCrunch is holding a contest calling people to mock the site about how how wrong it's been about a review or market forecast. I'm still embarrassed about falling for the April Fool's joke - so in love and respect, I thought I'd oblige! What did 3Bubbles do to deserve this mean spirited post? Nothing, really. As someone working at a company staring into the startup abyss, I shouldn't be so nasty. There's just no other way to participate in the contest! What kind of blog runs a contest like that?
April 4th, 2007 at
good one!
April 5th, 2007 at
[…] Update: Wow, I regret this already. Even our former writer Marshall Kirkpatrick is piling on. […]
April 5th, 2007 at
Hehe. Smart move to copy Mashable’s Insulting Comments Contest, in which I invited readers to insult me and Mashable for a $500 prize. Hey wait, is that my entry into this latest insult contest?
These things actually work great: the only confusing part is that you’re sometimes unsure whether people are sincere or not.
April 5th, 2007 at
His biggest mistake was letting you leave. Your research and objective reviews were the main reason I read TechCrunch.
April 5th, 2007 at
[…] While this is mostly for fun, I’ll be reading every entry carefully and pulling out as much constructive criticism as possible. This will be a painful, but useful, way to become a better writer. Update: Wow, I regret this already. Even our former writer Marshall Kirkpatrick is piling on. […]
April 5th, 2007 at
I thought the worst thing about TC was that goober Marshall. ;D
And, the inane love of Riya (are they dead yet?)
April 5th, 2007 at
Didn’t realize you were gone Marshall. Benn a little busy lately and haven’t been able to read TC as much. Yeah the whole rip me apart is a great idea to get links and traffic to those old pages and stories.
Good luck with whatever your doing now.
April 5th, 2007 at
3Bubbles was acquired: http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2006/08/3bubbles.html.
- Stowe
April 5th, 2007 at
By yes.com.
April 9th, 2007 at
[…] We’ve gone through the submissions and have carefully chosen the ten most creative posts (we did not include a couple of submissions where the writer said they weren’t interested in the tickets, and we decided former TechCrunch writer Marshall Kirkpatrick wasn’t eligible to win even though he wrote an excellent post). […]
April 9th, 2007 at
[…] We’ve gone through the submissions and have carefully chosen the ten most creative posts (we did not include a couple of submissions where the writers said they weren’t interested in the tickets, and we decided former TechCrunch writer Marshall Kirkpatrick wasn’t eligible to win even though he wrote an excellent post). […]
April 9th, 2007 at
[…] We’ve gone through the submissions and have carefully chosen the ten most creative posts (we did not include a couple of submissions where the writers said they weren’t interested in the tickets, and we decided former TechCrunch writer Marshall Kirkpatrick wasn’t eligible to win even though he wrote an excellent post). […]
April 9th, 2007 at
[…] 慎重な審査の結果、最もクリエイティブな記事10本が選ばれた（チケットに興味がないという作者の作品はいくつか除外した。また、元TechCrunchライターのMarshall Kirkpatrickはすばらしい記事を書いてくれたが当選資格がないと決定した。 […]
April 9th, 2007 at
[…] We’ve gone through the submissions and have carefully chosen the ten most creative posts (we did not include a couple of submissions where the writers said they weren’t interested in the tickets, and we decided former TechCrunch writer Marshall Kirkpatrick wasn’t eligible to win even though he wrote an excellent post). […]
June 10th, 2007 at
You definitely want to check out Arrington’s interview with current Stanford business school students at:
http://iinnovate.blogspot.com/2007/06/michael-arrington-founder-of-techcrunch.html
Min, on behalf of iinnovate.
November 6th, 2007 at
Hello!
How are you?