Since the recent article TechCrunch published, Twitter’s Internal Strategy Laid Bare: To Be “The Pulse Of The Planet”, it has gotten a lot of attention. Both from its own readers, the web community and Twitter too. TechCrunch had published confidential information about Twitter. However Evan Williams of Twitter had said otherwise that TechCrunch did not have such permission to share such documents.
There are people asking others to boycott TechCrunch while others praise TechCrunch and say Twitter is clueless on how to run their business due to the fact there has been no definite business model. Others like WebPro News questions – Who’s Right: TechCrunch or Twitter?
My own opinion is that TechCrunch should have gotten in touch with Twitter no matter what came through their inbox on what could be divulged. Twitter is entitled to keep their business model under wraps and their employee information by law is confidential. Was this a ploy of wankage by TechCrunch to get attention? Who knows, but at least Twitter came back with a response on their company blog (by the way… someone tell them to switch to WordPress please…perhaps Matt Mullenweg could?)
Biz Stone wrote:
Nevertheless, the publication of stolen documents is irresponsible and we absolutely did not give permission for these documents to be shared.
So, what do you think? Should TechCrunch issue a retraction, or will this be quite damaging to TC’s reputation? Was it a wankage scheme to discredit twitter as well as get more attention? Is boycotting TechCrunch a suitable action?
EDIT: Please be sure to note that I am not boycotting TechCrunch. In my personal opinion, it is ridiculous to do so as TechCrunch does have a lot of great material to read and learn and enjoy. However, as I have previously said, I do believe TechCrunch should at least issue some apology. I would think if someone got information like they did of TechCrunch like what happened with Twitter, that they would want to be informed and asked if it was okay to go ahead and publish, or to what information could be given out. Also, if a hacker gives out information in the spirit of helpfulness, this is not the case. They should have told Twitter and helped by giving tips. Perhaps they would have been hired by Twitter for helping them rather than making a scandal of it. I did not think TechCrunch was a tabloid, but I also just got tired of seeing people post about them wanting to boycott and wanted to know if it was really necessary and why? It was pointless to comment at TechCrunch because half of the comments were like walking into a forum with half the responses with no point despite there was a topic at hand.
Don’t boycott a blog about information, that is just ignorant. I don’t even understand what this blog post was about at all other than you wanted to have some keywords “twitter” and “tech crunch”. Maybe you are the one looking for attention.
I think we should boycott blondish.net. Actually, I just did. Never coming here again.
glhf
That is fine if you did not come back, but ignorant since you never really read my post. It was not about Boycotting, but the mixed reactions. >>>>>Boycott TechCrunch? Why?<<<<< Good for me you are not coming back...another testament to idiots who cannot read and cannot put their link down to back their words up. Reddit is not your link, and so I removed it. Now, if it were to your reddit account, then great. But to come here and post the idiocy you do at TechCrunch... then come here and not even properly read the post, bad show for you.
I did read your post, before you edited and changed the wording around to make it more clear on what you meant. I was wrong to say the things I did, and in hindsight I realize that. I apologize for being an ass, I really misconstrued your post and took it for the worst, I am sorry for that. I must have been in a very bitter mood.
The link I used was reddit because that is where I came from.
Anyway… I think TechCrunch did the right thing and twitter is unjustified to any complaint.
Anyone who doesn’t go to TechCrunch because of this is just going to miss out on news and only hurting themselves.
I like your blog and I will be back. Thanks for calling me out, sometimes people need that sort of thing.
I appreciate you coming back and no problems. I would never ask anyone to agree with me… and certainly, I like to blog and try to get opinions that matter to me. It is a way to connect with others.
Thank you. 🙂 And you might want to thank another commenter Lydia for putting in a word that I should put up something in regards to it.
Considering how irresponsible it is to post information about a subject without confirming the information is a) true, and b) for public knowledge, Tech Crunch was definitely in the wrong.
No responsible blogger, especially one wanting to be taken seriously in the tech world, would publish information without confirming it with the source, and then making sure the information was allowed to be public. All companies have proprietary information that is not to be shared, and frankly, people have been sued over the release of such information. Tech Crunch should consider themselves lucky that Twitter did not take that option.
At very least, Tech Crunch should post an apology, if not a retraction.
Twitter may or may not take that action.
Boycotting is ridiculous, but TC should at least apologize. It’s no use to issue a retraction. The damage is done. Instead of happily accepting whatever comes by their email, the need to dig in an do more research. If there was ever a question of violating law, cutting up and posting different documents that clearly can be misunderstood, it would be that article TC posted. Erick Schonfeld should being doing a DOH! about now.
There’ll be people who won’t come back to TC, but that’s choice. Some of the articles there I’ve found informative. I suggest you add a part to say you aren’t boycotting as that is what I’m getting from this whole thing.