Valleywag
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington notes the launch of European blog netowrk MyKinda with a swipe at MyKinda's competitor BlogNation. He published emails sent by BlogNation founder Sam Sethi, a former TechCrunch writer, to Blognation's employees and potential venture capitalists. Why? Well, there's bad blood here. And we're not talking about Sethi's feud with Arrington, either.
BlogNation was originally a partnership between Sethi and MyKinda founder Lee Wilkins, a Brit living in Romania. The Sethi-Wilkins partnership went sour, with threats flying back and forth, and Sethi took control of the BlogNation brand. Arrington naturally saw this as an opportune moment to strike back at Sethi for launching a competing blog network after he was fired from TechCrunch UK.
In this three-way blogfight, Arrington's motives are transparent. But what I can't figure out is what Sethi and Wilkins are thinking. One, in launching their blog networks in Europe. And two, getting so emotional about it. This is the land of socialized medicine and siestas, people. Their most successful startups are obvious Facebook clones or $900 million writeoffs. If you're going to fight, why not make it over something worthwhile? Oh right — this is Europe.
(Photo by pankration)
Comments
Comment on TechCrunch:
"I think Mike Arrington needs to take a chill pill because the valleywagisation of Tech Crunch degrades technology journalism in general."
Wow, look! Someone invented a new word to describe this phenomenon! Now let's see if it makes it into The Urban Dictionary...
I may be biased, currently living in the UK, but I really think you're totally mistaken and misguided if you think that Europe has nothing to offer the web startup community. Not everything is based in Silicon Valley.
Have you not heard of Last.fm? Jaiku? Moo? Plazes? Dopplr? If you took the time to look at some of the good work coming out of Europe right now and the strong community that is building, I think you might begin to understand their motivations to start up in Europe...
Phew, now that little rant's over, I can go have my siesta :)
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