Commenting on disappearing posts and the TechCrunch effect

Umair Haque made a fairly interesting post earlier today, and this evening I thought I would comment, only to find he's removed it owing to blogsturm and drang - surely not, in such an august ecosystem;)

UPDATE - its on TechCrunch's Crunchnotes now, so here are my thoughts:

It was all due to the TechCrunch Effect, which Mike Butcher over at TechCrunch UK commented on - as Mike noted:

His argument is that TechCrunch is “peaking”, it doesn’t invest in the “community” and instead gets its attention by creating division. He calls this “The TechCrunch Effect”. Ouch.

Clearly the Bubblegeneration effect created some division too

In essence, Umair argues two points - Firstly, re that TechCrunch Effect:

I'm gonna make a prediction. TechCrunch (etc) are peaking. Without investing in the community - instead of just endlessly playing the community against itself - further growth (real growth, not just beta) is going to be more and more costly.

I'm gonna call this set of dynamics the TechCrunch Effect. It's the opposite of building a community. Instead of making a set of people with similar interests better off, you wedge them and divide them.

Actually, I'm not surprised there is a slowdown, growth at TC (et al too) has been phenomenal over the last 12 months - but competition is improving (blogs like this one and Umairs are both growing for example), and by definition growth from now on will be harder. I don't buy the divisiveness per se, its the TC schtick, and I prefer it to the parrot-the-news without comment of some of the others. They have an editorial policy and you knows what youse getting. TC has a community (just look at its comment board). What is probably more concerning is its role as startup kingmaker, but that too will pass.

The other point was re Etsy being the New Google:

If we're lucky, Etsy is gonna start emerging as the next Google. Microcommunities are going to explode. Etc. Why? Because at the edge, love is more powerful than hate - a lot more powerful.

I don't think a right-on Green Webshop is quite the same animal as a search engine - different parts of the ecosystem in my view - but I do agree that microcommunities will expand now, curiously enough because of Google's (and the New search players') ability to find them. Its a Coasian thing - as transaction costs reduce, it gets easier and easier to dive into the long tail.

Re the sturm und drang, Umair notes:

You get almost instantly tag-teamed by several people at once - guys who can spend all day blogging about you and your post, no less.

Well, I say carry on commenting - its always good to have thought provoking stuff to debate. And as Oscar Wilde said, there is only one thing worse than being talked about - take the link-lurve and run