Tech Blogs Turn From Hobbies to Businesses
Not everyone gets rich blogging. How a lucky few made it.
June 21, 2007— -- "Om (Malik) and I love scotch," Michael Arrington says. "But we never drink anymore."
The two friends no longer have the time or energy, in part because they're too busy competing with each other.
Both run influential technology blogs that are helping drive the current Internet boom— and making Arrington and Malik tech luminaries in their own right.
Arrington, 37, is the force behind TechCrunch, a blog chronicling the rise and fall of Internet start-ups. (They're often called Web 2.0 companies.) Malik, 40, runs GigaOm, a slightly more scholarly blog that looks at all things techy.
GigaOm has readers numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and TechCrunch's audience tops a million. But that doesn't accurately reflect their far-reaching influence. TechCrunch is the fourth-most-linked-to blog on the Internet, says Technorati, a blog search engine. GigaOm ranks 34th, a still impressive number given that Technorati tracks more than 86 million blogs.
TechCrunch's impact could soon be as great as Silicon Valley's major newspaper, The San Jose Mercury News, says Paul Gillin, author of blog guide The New Influencers. "It's one of the first things I read every day," says David Cowan, a venture capitalist for Bessemer Venture Partners. "It's hard to describe the extent to which I rely on TechCrunch."
GigaOm may not have quite as much pull, but it still has a long list of powerful readers. Malik is "a really smart guy, and he makes me think," says Roger McNamee, a prominent venture capitalist with several Silicon Valley firms. "He's really significant," says Max Kalehoff, a vice president at research firm Nielsen BuzzMetrics.
It's high praise for two blogs that started as hobbies. Both Arrington and Malik say they're surprised at how quickly their side projects became businesses — and obsessions. The two friends seem to be always working, often posting in the middle of the night. They look tired.
"I scheduled a conference call with a (public relations) person at 2:30 a.m.," Arrington says.
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