Arrington Is Really Rupert Murdock, Jr.

Arrington howls about the rise of cheapo, knock-off journalism undercutting new media, which knocked off and undercut old media. I think.

[via The End Of Hand Crafted Content by Mike Arrington]

Forget fair and unfair, right and wrong. This is simply happening. The disruptors are getting disrupted, and everyone has to adapt to it or face the consequences. Hand crafted content is dead. Long live fast food content, it’s here to stay.

Arrington sounds so much like Murdoch it’s like he is channeling him. Perhaps Murdoch should acquire TechCrunch, and let Mike wage war for him.

Oddly, in the same piece, he suggests that people should break out of established media and do their own thing, and then he winds up suggesting that fast food content providers are going to fuck everything up. Maybe they should start selling shoes, like Zappo’s, instead?

But what Mike is grousing about is new forms of competition for media machines — like TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal — cutting into profits, pulling down the numbers. He’s like NetFlix struggling with the RedBox phenomenon, while Blockbuster flails.

As Doc Searls says, this isn’t about independent voices:

[via The Revolution Will Note Be Intermediated]

I kinda don’t think FFC [fasy food content] is going to shut down serious writers (no
matter where and how they write) any more than McDonald’s killed the
market for serious chefs.

But TechCrunch isn’t the French Laundry or Momofuko: its a fleet of food trucks offering up enjoyable, affordable street food. They undercut the media giants who were too slow and carrying too much overhead. And now he’s in a price war with McDonalds, a McDonalds employing minimum wage hacks, churning out crap food.

He has a choice: to go upmarket, and focus on polishing the writing, with deeper investigation of technology, or to give into the urge to cut corners. Or get caught in the middle. Might be a good time to be acquired by a media giant, like Murdoch, Mike.