Blog Controversy
A recent article on VentureBeat has been creating a lot of noise in the blogosphere. The post was by Auren Hoffman, CEO of Rapleaf, and talked about eVite and Socializr. I originally heard about the post on Paul Kedrosky’s site, and I think Paul has a good point, much the same as the comments that were predominantly against having Auren’s post on the site at all. Matt Marshall does seem like a good guy, and I do agree, controversy is good, and whileÂ? it probably was a mistake to publish it, I do think the majority of the article was pretty bang on.
Any company that existed in 1999 has to go through some sort of significant upgrade it it expects to maintain itself to maintain its relevance. This is not limited to a hardware upgrade or just a facelift, but adding features, widgets, or new technologies into their code to bring it up to the new standards that are present on today’s Internet. It’s interesting that not many people actually cared about what was being written, instead focsussing on the fact that there is a plug for Socializr, a company that Auren invested in.
When I read Michael Arrington’s post on Dogster, I felt that was probably a worse case of an investor trying to plug their product. The difference is that Michael’s post clearly states that he is an investor, while Auren’sÂ? post contains a disclaimer when he starts talking aboutÂ? Socializr.Â? Most of the post would be acceptable, but that one final paragraph seems to haveÂ? put a sour taste in a lot of mouths. What’s interesting is that despite the factÂ? the TechcrunchÂ? post stated from the beginning it was propaganda,Â? the influence of Techcrunch is so significant that it will obviously have a positive effect on Dogster. Auren’s post, on the other hand, was quite clearly critiquing one site and mentioned an alternative that the author happened to be an investor in. I see the conflict of interest, but fact is fact. AnyoneÂ? frequently harassed by any of these sites, be it eVite or some other viral website, would understand these complaints. Now, I agree the whole Socializr bandwagon has left much to be desired, but it’s probably good for eViteÂ? to have competition. Hopefully Auren hasn’t caused too many ripples in the lake to prevent Socializr from staying afloat.
Having said all that, I wouldn’t complain if Matt let meÂ? write about why FKMarry is SO much better than HotOrNot, RateMyBodyÂ? or any of those other rating sites. One day, we may even let users upload their own pics!