Is the network cross plug dead at Techcrunch?

September 15, 2006 — 1 Comment

I know that the Techcrunch gang came under a fair bit lot of fire in the Techcrunch comments previously everytime the site did a cross promotion for Crunchgear…but it looks like the left hand might not be quite sure what the right hand is doing, or thinking, or wanting…

In Bloglines showing the RSS feed:

crunchthis

And then the page itself:

crunchthis

So it was posted…then pulled. Now all of this happened overnight my time so I obviously didn’t get to see the comments on this one, but what is interesting to note is the next post on Zune references Crunchgear…but actually uses a shot from Weblogs Inc’s Engadget! Indeed, the sad thing I guess for Techcrunch readers is that the Zune post only links to the stuff at Crunchgear… whilst I don’t want to bag Crunchgear (I happen to think the site is doing a pretty good job), Techcrunch readers would have been far better served if the main post on the Zune linked to other sources out there covering the Zune launch, Engadget in particular, because to be honest other sources gave a far better run down on Zune than Crunchgear did. Can we see the conflict of interest happening now not only to Mike Arrington, but others writing at Techcruch? Indeed, if Techcrunch was a Weblogs Inc. site, Jason Calacanis would be under some serious fire by now for not linking to superior sources, or as the case maybe, only cross linking to owned network sites that do nothing more that republish information from elsewhere.

 

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