In this era, where the world is getting transformed into a global village, every single individual wishes to stay updated about all aspects of development, including the latest technologies, new trends in the scientific world, start-ups, new gadgets, in fact, about every news related to technology. Since it is contributing to most of our expansion, the technology seems to catch most of the attention from every community and nation.
TechCrunch is one online publisher that has created a firm base on the sphere of technology reporting on the latest trends of the Sci-Fi world. Well, undoubtedly it does more than just displaying news, and is a hotspot of knowledge for every tech lover.
TechCrunch is an America-based business, which was founded in June 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. The company has its headquarters in the Bay Area, United States.
Michael Arrington
J. Michael Arrington was born on 13th March 1970, in California. He has a major in economics and is a former lawyer, graduated from Stanford Law School in 1995.
Before founding TechCrunch, he was involved with many other endeavouring businesses. He was a part of RealNames that raised $100 million in funding as a startup. He was the co-founder of Achex, an online payment company. Zip. Ca, Pool.com, Razorgator, Edgeio and Folders are some of his biggest achievements, apart from TechCrunch. He also invested in Uber, Airbnb and Pinterest.
Michael Arrington had a huge contribution to the creation and growth of TechCrunch, even though, he is no longer the CEO of the company. Arrington is well known both, as a blogger and an entrepreneur. He has absolutely changed the idea of blogging for people who are passionate about it. According to him, ‘if you have to maintain a blog you need to update it every day, which makes it very tiresome. But if it is user-generated, it will make your blog even more informative as contribution will be much higher as compared to you alone.’
Michael Arrington believes in writing posts on stories that can easily go viral without putting so much hard work. Since blogging is what changed the fate of TechCrunch, Arrington can be considered as one of the most efficient tech bloggers in the entire world. Arrington’s passion and tenacity are what brings TechCrunch at the pinnacle of its power. He has even been selected as one of the most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.
The story and evolution of TechCrunch
It all started in 2005 when Arrington posted a very informative blog about the companies that were progressing expeditiously and gaining immense success. It turned out that his blogs were gaining popularity in no time and changed the entire outlook of business reporting.
The first blog of TechCrunch was posted on 11th June 2005, which eventually led to the establishment of one of the prominent site for start-ups and gadgets. Apparently, Arrington wasn’t too much involved in blogging as he was busy starting a new company, but a few months, he was totally engrossed in it and gave it a head start.
The future of the company turned its wheel in 2006 when Arrington was the first to post about the news of Youtube being Google’s new asset. Apart from this, the newsfeeds about the gadgets added to its gaining popularity.
In 2007, the company formed Crunchbase, a platform where anyone can conduct researches on start-up companies. It maintains a database which has information of start-ups, investors, total funding, acquisitions; money rose by acquisitions, upcoming events and featured stories about latest businesses. Initially, the company had more than 50,000 contributors which crossed 2 million in 2013. The companies or even a single individual registered and accessed the facilities of CrunchBase and submitted to the database.
In 2008, the company started The Crunchies, an award ceremony that gave away awards to the best start-ups, best mobile app, and in many other categories. They thoroughly analyzed the progress of the companies throughout the year, the funding they received, and thus awarded them annually. Apart from TechCrunch, the Crunchies was sponsored and hosted by blogs like GigaOm, VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb. This helped the company grow even rapidly as it lured start-up companies from around the globe to see where they stand, study their competitors and not to mention the desire to win awards. In 2017, the company announced the discontinuity of Crunchies.
In 2010, the company was taken over by AOL which wield the sceptre from 2010-2017 followed by Verizon Media which is the current owner of the company.
In 2011, Arrington made his mind to resign from the position of the editor of the company as he faced disagreement with his decisions of starting Crunchfund (to invest in tech start-ups).
In 2015, the company declared that the Crunchbase is no longer a part of TechCrunch.
One of the most powerful tools of TechCrunch is the Startup Battlefield, a platform provided to the new start-ups at the annual tech conference, TechCrunch Disrupt hosted by the company. It allows all the new minds to sign in and share their innovative ideas with the investors, media and other parties to gain money and publicity. Now, who doesn’t want that? The exposure gained through it is priceless, and moreover, the winner receives prize money of $50,000.
Thus, TechCrunch is the ultimate destination for all those who aspire to be a successful businessman, learn more about technology and blogging or anything about entrepreneurship. They post the most compelling and inspiring stories of start-ups with utmost transparency and high quality. It can also be considered as a study guide (Extra Crunch) for those who want to learn more about start-ups.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more