Mike MacLeod › Likes

but then...how do you know his influence hasn't effected anyone?? you don't... - Rob Sellen :o)

Agree. TC is not your ticket to success. - Merry Xmas FFeeders - AJ

I do not defend haters in the slightest ... but I have to note that there seems to be some slight correlation between personal arrogance and negative attention online. - Nadine Schaeffer

I think i am going to do the "Leave Britney Alone" video for mike arrington. - Bernadette Balla

lmao @ bernadette - Rob Sellen :o)

The most vile frustration with Mike no doubt comes from some entrepreneurs that haven't been successful. I'd also believe you have some jealousy/frustration from other bloggers who don't think it is an even landscape for opportunity, and, as with YouTube, as you get deeper into the general populace, quality of comments gets extremely poor. The only interactions I've had with Mike in person, phone and e-mail were good. But he is very competitive and people can react badly to that. - Louis Gray

I talked about some of this back in July in regards to TechCrunch and Techmeme (http://louisgray.com/live...) and got some flack for it, but I don't want to repeat everything again. - Louis Gray

A lot of entrepreneurs are told that all marketing is good marketing. TechCrunch gets a lot of eyeballs... So naturally, if you're not featured, or featured badly, you might face an uphill battle at getting your product liked? Nice use of the word "cockblocking" - very Californication like :-) - Colin Charles from twhirl

Too many people, when life hands them crap, look around for someone to blame. Too many people give the internet too much credit. Also, this is the downside of celebrity. Celebrity is relative, and Mike is somewhat of a celebrity to the online startup crowd. It often pays to be unnoticed and under the radar. It sucks to be the target of hostility, unless you've earned it like Chaney or Madoff. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Paul - totally agree with you. All the hate, drivel and trash mouth comes from folks who don't cut the mustard with Mike. They're all angry, upset and act like a bunch of fools, which actually further validates Mike's assessment against them. TC is a nice endorsement, when warranted, but is NOT necessary for a tech startup to succeed. TC / Arrington is NOT the only avenue for publicity / promotion of a product / service. - Susan Beebe

well the spitting and death threats are unwarranted, but how come none of the other bloggers face this ? - atul abraham from twhirl

I think Mike A. as usual is ahead of the trend... and 2009 will be the year where all of the openess and "putting yourself out there" gets a major reality check - via public online scandals (and lets hope not but I fear so tragedies) that are outcomes of us putting ourselves "out there" in a broader society that hasn't quite evolved to the level of the sometimes tough but always civil and never threatening industry insider valley/bay crowd. - andrew

atul, my point was that he's blocking their success, which is not a position most bloggers are in. - Paul Buchheit

so is he blocking them or do they only THINK he is ? ( seeing that he is so influential in the Valley and all .. ) - atul abraham from twhirl

Paul, we discussed the rising "celebrity" of the new tech leaders like you on our music and tech. talkcast. For most of my life I've dealt with celebs who must try to make sense of the fringe anger that is often directed at public figures. While it's wonderful to put a face on the code, it comes with some baggage. My heart really hurts for Michael and his family, regardless of what some may feel about him, the threats to visible personalities are an unfortunate reality. - michael sean wright

besides Arrington himself attributes it to " blogger infighting " in the WSJ Online - atul abraham from twhirl

Paul, I agree that ignorance is the problem. How did it arise, and how can things change for the better? How did TechCrunch come to loom so large in some people's minds, and why does it unsettle them? I will contemplate this. - Josh

I agree. If Arrington won't write about a startup on launch, then he'll write about it when it has gotten some traction. If you can't get traction without Techcrunch, there's something missing in your growth model. Big reporting upfront only helps to get a fast start. I don't think Techcrunch can't make or break anything. - Meryn Stol

Mike says tech bloggers inspired spitter. http://bit.ly/tFJJ - Dave Winer

That explanation makes me want to spit him ;) Seriously though, it's not clear how anyone other than the spitter himself would really know. It's difficult for me to believe that all the angry comments on TC (which are usually directed at the startup getting covered) are somehow the fault of other blogs. - Paul Buchheit

I haven't read all the reports -- do any of them say who the spitter was? - Dave Winer

IMHO, I think he's faced with envy. The human condition is like this, we want people who are successful. I can't tolerate happen to such violence, verbal or physical. They encroach on our freedoms ! - Guy Vander Heyden

whinger not a ninja - Bob Sonin

If you're spending time worrying about "What TechCrunch thinks", you're in the wrong business. Startups should care about what their customers think, not Arrington. Plus - just write a decent business plan, with some real revenue sources in it. You will get more benefit from that than a million blog posts. - Ian Betteridge

No matter what he wrote or didn't, arrogant or not, he doesn't deserve a saliva salute. - Phil Boiarski

He says that the tech bloggers inspired the spitter and death threat. Ok, but who inspired the bloggers, Mike? - Michael Forian

correct paul - tc is a data source for venturing minimally just like tc's peers - true funding decisions will come from business plan solidity and being able to properly represent same during due diligence - having tc comment pro or con doesn't mean that much in that process - mike "glemak" dunn

Paul, that joke seems uncharacteristically insensitive of you. Do you need more sleep? - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

If you think you need TC to succeed perhaps you need to rethink your business model. - Trae Ruge

I am always shocked at the rudeness and bad spirit of the comments on blogs such as TC but also on Digg posts. For that reason I have stopped reading comments on those blogs. Comments and discussions on friendfeed however are of much higher quality. People typically do not insult each other here. I like it this way. Hope it stays this way. - Davide D'Incau

Viral hat. - Trish R

The hat looked better on Aretha - Bob Gannon

lmao - Michael W. May

That's hilarious! - Louis P. from twhirl

Tupac! [THUD] - Admiral Anika

Actually thought Tupac was able to pull it off quite nicely. - Mlibrarianus

silliness! - Sarah Perez

OK, this is hilarious! - Jeff P. Henderson

OMG She's started a trend of FAIL pics - sofarsoShawn

that first dog is very william wegman. - Karim

quick glance threw me for a loop i thought #1 was Worthington! - Carlos Ayala

It isn't Johnny?! - WorldofHiglet

hahahhahaha EPIC! - Mona Nomura

Is this gonna be memefied ? :D - Mo Kargas

Thank you for posting this! I just made one of me and hubby and another of our doggie! - Head Ov Metal

Hrm...I want one now - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

Check out my twitter and facebook :O) Man, that was such a good hat!!! - Will Higgins™

Must. Reshare. - MLx

My wife hate it when I do that to her. - stretta from twhirl

Yeah, I'm getting the same way myself, these days. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

WTH were you doing off FriendFeed? - Louis Gray

LOL - Josh Haley

Smooth - Noah

Eugh I'm doing that a lot recently - Mo Kargas

What I've been finding myself doing is wanting to Like something on Facebook then realizing where I am. - Jauder Ho

Jauder, you will soon be able to Like at Facebook, they are slowly copying all FF features! And that's been announced already (http://is.gd/gWMM). - Flavio

Eh? Facebook is full of photocopied pages? ;) - Tyson Key

Good question Mark. I originally thought they would have folded in Lifestreaming functionality after the Jaiku acquisition but that doesn't appear to be happening. They're using Google Connect to primarily push their own content outside but I don't see any signs of aggregating 3rd party content on the inside. Specifically the Google profile pages. - Mark Krynsky

I wish there was one place I could do my updates and it would post to all these "social" sites. Any ideas? - MicahBear78

The other two quadrants seem like very interesting combinations to me. - Tudor Bosman

I am shooting for Angry and Generous. - Bret Taylor

calm and selfish: evil genius (Karl Rove?); generous and angry: CEO-turned-philantropist (Bill Gates?) - Tudor Bosman

for more Jessica work :http://thisisindexed.com/ - Huseyin Savas

Huseyin: Yes, Indexed is awesome. - Tudor Bosman

What about when to comment vs. when to write your own post? - mikepk

FriendFeed for in-between cases where the original observation is fairly pithy, but may be found worthy of comment/conversation/development. Or where it would be too long for twitter but off-topic for your blog. - Tegan Dowling

I think the same rules apply. If you have to go in depth you make your own post and reference the inspiration. - MarkCarras

I don't think FriendFeed is for in-between cases. I think FF is a totally different animal altogether. I'm still thinking on that one... - Daniel Miessler

Let's say that FF is also, among other uses, for in-between cases? - Bora Zivkovic

There are rules to this stuff? - Jesse Stay

nice summary. i use plurk as well and this could apply there (ie when a quicker conversation response is needed) - Charlie Robinson

Jesse, well guidelines really - mikepk

Oh, but you're too popular, Derrick, it's not your case! Unless you use a second nickname to tell all those things you wouldn't say with your main identity so no one knows... ;) - Jordi Soler

You nailed why number of followers doesn't matter. - Robert Scoble

It's just that I don't get it, Robert: everyone is trying so hard to get the highest number of followers when in fact this just adds pressure on you. Doesn't anybody understand that it's great to follow the popular ones while debating with your little circle of friends about those "bigger than life" issues? Silly race, if you ask me. - Jordi Soler

But if one posts the cure for cancer and has no followers, our loved ones still die. Followers do count, but it is more about quality than it is about quantity. And by quality I mean do they communicate, respond, and interact with your messages. - MarkCarras

Jordi, by comparison I don't have or follow that many people. In fact, I'm long overdue to go back and trim both my FF and Twitter peeps. I certainly don't have 1000s, and I'm far from the A-listers who do (and don't really participate, other than being name brands). - Derrick

+1 Mark - Derrick

It makes me cry when people tweet, "I have 489 followers, want to hit 500 before midnight." - Admiral Anika

People getting excited about how many follows they have is usually an indication that they're missing the point - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

@Mark, if I ever find the cure for cancer it won't matter how many followers I have: you'll see me on the news. The thing is, I find it easier to be unnoticed so you don't feel like everyone's anticipating what your next great opinion is going to be. - Jordi Soler

If I cure cancer and only have 2 friends it will still circulate the world inside of 6 hours. - Mike MacLeod

Crap :/ - embee

Twitter really needs an API key. I've sworn off any 3rd-party app or site that needs a real password. - LogEx

Beware - they are tied into http://www.tweetmanager.com as well (via http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auction... and click www.twautor.com). - Renee Hendricks

$1200 for a site up for one day? The smell of phish is strong. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

remember it is now 2009 ;) - Michael W. May

Mark, thanks for the due diligence and heads-up! - Gregg

Thanks for letting us know! - ursi

To be fair, I saw the sale notice buried in one of the threads on FriendFeed about Twiply, figured it warranted a top-level post about it. - Mark Trapp

i saw a bunch of prominent tweeple tweet about this service earlier today, and i guess those endorsements triggered lots of others to sign-up without stopping to consider what was going on..."meme-think" at its worst. - .LAG liked that

I changed my twitter password. But the bastards have my email. Oh well. - Jim Williams

Never touched it - Tyler (Chacha)

And I even changed both my passwords anyway :) - Tyler (Chacha)

I did not use it...good thing - Susan Beebe

Twitter should investigate, they can start with the Tweet stream from Twply. I'll keep my eye out for new "offers" in my gmail inbox. - B2B Specialist

I went to the site but closed the browser when I realized it was another site that wanted my Twitter password. - Bob Gannon

without using ssl - Michael W. May from twhirl

I'm surprised anyone did use them after all the recent shenanigans. - WorldofHiglet

....plus the name puts me in mind of bathroom tissue/toilet tissue/bog roll... - WorldofHiglet

I was a sucker. I am swearing off 3rd party applications until Twitter gets an API key. - Mathew A. Koeneker

Susanne BULLO - good catch on connecting Twply with TweetManager. FYI - TweetManager has a feature that lets you DM up to 1,000 people. - Mike Doeff

Yikes, going to change my password now. - Zach

Nope, sure didn't. Nothing in my Twitter stream is important enough for me to care. But yeah, they are shady. - Bwana ☠

Have any journalists/bloggers actually tried contacting them to get their viewpoint? - trextor

trextor: it's hard to contact a guy who doesn't have contact information. The only identifiable information is on the whois record for Twply.com, which may or may not actually correspond to an actual person. That being said, if you look at Twply's Twitter account or the comment it left on http://scobleizer.com, the person running Twply doesn't think it's done anything wrong, at least... more... - Mark Trapp

@mark, i did verify that the whois information is real after I posted about this situation here: http://helloform.com/blog... - Fred Oliveira

Just to clarify.. Did they sell all the data as well, or just the service? - Winston Teo

I bought FauxAuth.net with the intention of making an OAuth middleman so you COULD cut a site off if something like this happened. - Tom

OAuth FTW. - Chris Messina

Mike Doeff: Thanks. For those looking for contact info, since twply appears to be connected to twautor which is an aka for tweetmanager, you can find a contact person very quickly and easily for tweetmanager - "Bill McIntosh TweetManager.com Founder http://www.billmcintosh.com Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/billmci..." - Renee Hendricks

Mark - Thanks for the heads up. Was bound to happen sooner or later ?! - Charlie Anzman

Thanks for the details Mark. - trextor