Virtual TechCrunch Disrupt 2020 launched yesterday, the flagship event from Silicon Valley tech edit’s biggest brand. Overall, it went well — so much so that it’s hard to imagine F2F events ever again being produced as they were before the pandemic.
TechCrunch has announced yet another event series — TechCrunch Early Stage — designed to help seed and Series A startups grow quickly. The first event will take place Apr. 28 at the Hilton Union Square San Francisco. Events in Paris and New York will be announced later this year.
Alex Wilhelm is back at TechCrunch. Four years away have changed him. “I’m in different physical shape these days,” he says from his WFH studio in Rhode Island. “I’m a lot thinner. I don’t drink anymore. I’m a less aggressive, kinder person than I was. And I know a lot more.”
We get a lot of questions about TechCrunch Extra Crunch. Who reads it? How is it doing? Should we pitch it? So we checked in with TC EC editor Danny Crichton, who was happy to guide tech PR in how things were going, and how best to serve his new franchise.
TechCrunch Extra Crunch this week posted a pair of articles containing admonishment and advice for tech PR pros. The top portion of the posts does appear for free in regular TechCrunch. The full text is available only to TC EC subscribers. We hereby excerpt (in fair-use fashion) what our readers most need to know.
TechCrunch this week introduced TechCrunch Extra Crunch, a premium subscription tier that brings extra content and services to the publication’s most passionate readers. Tech PR gets new opportunity to pitch startups without needing a news hook. (See related analysis.)
Does TechCrunch Extra Crunch present extra pitch opportunity? The one-word answer is yes. But in the vast majority of instances, tech PR pros will pitch the publication just as they have since its founding in 2005.
The Block “is not an enthusiast site [for crypto],” says new editor-in-chief John Biggs. “We’re not rah rah rah all day long like other sites.” The 12-year veteran of TechCrunch is now a full-timer at The Block, a thoughtful crypto publication that’s coming up on its first birthday.
TechCrunch still covers funding rounds the old-fashioned way — with lots of full-fledged articles each day, each with their own style. No digests like Fortune’s and CNBC’s. Nothing half-hearted. Coverage ranges from seed round through Series E and F.
The new TechCrunch web platform, launched in beta this week, will keep you reading more of what you’ve chosen. And it stands to change how you think of stories and pages. TC’s edit direction remains the same — companies, technologies, founders and investors. It’s still about breaking news and smart analysis delivered wryly.
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FRIDGE NOTES
Tomorrow at 1:05p PDT, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas will be interviewed by WSJ reporter Deepa Seetharaman as part of this year’s WSJ Tech Live event. It might be awkward, because on Monday, WSJ parent News Corp. sued Perplexity for appropriating News Corp. content. Deepa stands to land the interview of the year if Aravind shows up. His lawyers will probably advise him not to.
The Atlantic soon will publish 12 print editions a year, up from ten. “The greatness of print and especially a print magazine is that it sits still for you,” EIC Jeffrey Goldberg tells CNN. “It doesn’t beep and flash and demand that you do things.”
Here’s a true story. An Oct. 8 Adweek headline says, ‘Press Releases Have Become Way Too Hyperbolic.’ The deck says, ‘Experts Warn the Loss of Credibility Could Lead to Catastrophe.”
TechCrunch redesigned this week. Still green, less clutter. Built for the phone. Events and newsletters rank higher in the home page scroll than startups, venture and AI. No enterprise section. Parent Yahoo invested this money to build engagement. More changes due in 2025, EIC Connie Loizos says.
Adweek’s Mark Stenberg reports that Wired is getting into the awards business. The Wired 101 Awards will debut in October. Be on the lookout for the announcement.
BI’s publishing software knows what you’ve clicked on before and where you came from. Through Google Analytics, BI also knows how all readers react to certain content. Once you visit, BI knows whether to ask you to subscribe, or to register, or just to let you see everything for just that one visit. Conversions rose 75 percent this year. Digiday got the scoop (subscription required).
