Michael Arrington is the founder of Tech Crunch, a blog that profiles new Web 2.0 startups. Tech Crunch has become a must read for Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, and has helped propelled Mr. Arrington into one of the Valley’s most influential people. If your startup is featured on Tech Crunch, you can expect a flood of traffic and even venture capitalists knocking on your door with offers of money.
Tech Crunch started less than two years ago and has grown at an amazing rate. Currently the site is averaging 55,000 visitors and 74,000 page views per day, with over 130,000 RSS subscribers. What do those numbers means in terms of site income?
Tech Crunch’s main revenue comes from 125×125 sponsorship buttons. The buttons cost $10,000 per month and there are six of them on the blog (seven last month). CPM banners ad sale via Federated Media brings in additional advertising income. There is also the Crunch Job Board, where companies can post open job opportunities. A 30-day posting cost $200. There were 20 new job postings on November 8, but the average seems to be 3 to 5 per day. Tech Crunch also profits from throwing parties and having companies sponsor them – the next party is in New York on November 16. All together, the Tech Crunch network brings in about $120,000 per month, according to Mr. Arrington.
Like all successful site owners, Michael Arrington had to deal with his share of haters. These people point out that people like Arrington are helping to set the internet up for another dot com crash. I personally think that is hogwash. Maybe they’re just jealous because Mr. Arrington once dated a Miss Universe contestant from Denmark.
A more serious issue is conflict of interest. In the past, Mr. Arrington has given positive reviews on companies that he was an investor in. He has started posting more detailed disclosures about his financial ties to Tech Crunch featured companies.
Mr. Arrington’s goal for Tech Crunch is to become bigger than CNet News in two years. That’s a pretty lofty goal, and given the limited niche that Tech Crunch covers, I don’t see how that is possible. However, I wouldn’t bet against him.
Sources used for this article: Blogging for Dollars – Business 2.0, TechCrunch Site Makes Arrington A Power Broker – Wall Street Journal, Crunch Notes
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Congrats to Mr. Arrington. Great to see such a young site make so much.
Interesting Article !!
Good work from Arrington, but I doubt it he will be bigger than news.com in 2 years… news.com will not sit and wait.. they are moving on to
Thanks for giving me some ideas for a new business model for my site. Quite impressive to get 10,000 just for a button …
Bigger than CNet in two years? To me that seems like an obtuse goal.
In order for him to over take CNet, he’ll have to expand the coverage of Tech Crunch into other areas. There is no way he’ll be able to do it just covering Web 2.0. Even then, to catch CNet would be a major job!
I’d like to see some success profiles about people that weren’t already previous dot com poster boys. You know, people that nobody every heard of before, rather than a Wired magazine bigwig who now runs an “insider” tech site. As someone who lives far far away from California and barely makes a living building web sites from home, forgive me if I lack enthusiasm for these guys working on “VC-Funded Success 2.0″.
Great article. These are the stories that inspire others to work hard and grit through the slow times until they see success. Thanks for all your hard work!
Hey, thanks very much for the post. Very cool. One clarification – as far as I know I’ve never been accused of writing a review about a startup that I’ve invested in – positive or negative – without disclosing that fact (and I only have a couple of investments – Edgeio and Dogster).
One more thing, web 2.0 wont be hot forever. Who knows where we are in two years?
Michael Arrington – Thanks for the clarification. I have corrected the article.
Wow, that exponential growth is impressive!
I’m a big fan of TechCrunch, thats some amazing revenue he is pulling in.