Techcrunch can easily lay claim to being the most popular technology news blog on the planet.
Launched by one-time Silicon Valley corporate lawyer Michael Arrington in June 2005, it has managed to surf the crest of the Web 2.0 wave and is now seen as a kingmaker for the thousands of net start-ups vying for the attention of financiers and customers. It has 603,000 subscribers, according to Feedburner, and is the third favourite blog with users of the Technorati blog tracking service, which ranks it as the fourth-biggest blog on the web.
Arrington has become something of a rock star in Valley circles and last September was named one of the 25 most influential people on the web by Business Week. A controversial figure, he has invested in some of the companies he writes about, although he lists his investments on the site. He has also fallen out publicly with a number of his employees.
Techcrunch's standard fare is in-depth reviews of the latest Web 2.0 services, investment stories and what giants such as Google and Facebook are up to.
Arrington and his reporters have also scooped the mainstream press on big stories including Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube last year.
In fact Techcrunch has become so successful it probably stretches the definition of a blog by now. It employs a tight team of media industry veterans and journalists including co-editor Erick Schonfeld, who includes senior stints at Business 2.0 and Fortune on his CV.
It has spawned a jobs site (CrunchBoard), a start-up conference (Techcrunch 40) and versions covering mobile, gadgets and different parts of the world such as Japan, France and Britain and Ireland (edited by Irish Timescontributor Mike Butcher).
Techcrunch produces a massive volume of posts each day and, as a result, has descended into what could be described as Silicon Valley gossip blogging on occasion. If you can manage to get past that, Techcrunch has its finger on the pulse of where the web is going.
