Can the Silicon Valley Bank meltdown now seem so long ago? Yet the true fallout has not yet begun. In our Mar. 21 SWMS Q&A, edited for length and clarity — TechCrunch+ EIC Alex Wilhelm gives us a generous glimpse of what it was like to work at TechCrunch that day.
Most PR pros categorize targets by beat, then by publication. There’s another way — by experience. The rookies are happy to be where they are. And quite often they are friendly toward PR, especially when you appear to know a little bit about them.
TechCrunch’s Equity podcast turns five years old this week. If you haven’t listened lately, consider it. It’s “a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.”
Unlike most reporters you’ll meet, TechCrunch freelancer Amanda Silberling is no introvert. She truly wants you to understand what she does and why.
Red Ventures isn’t selling ZDNet anytime soon. If anything, the 30-year-old franchise is growing. Look for enhanced coverage of health, education and personal finance in
So back in August you got a hit in TechCrunch. At least on desktops/laptops, you reached less than three million American readers. Ars Technica, Axios and Wired would have delivered you more, not to mention the Tier 1s.
TechCrunch this week retired its Extra Crunch brand, ending what proved to be an interesting 31-month experiment. TC’s paid edit product is now called TechCrunch+, only slightly different in composition from its predecessor.
TechCrunch is growing. By our count, the 16-year-old title has added six contractors in recent months. Here’s who they are and what they cover, with contact info.
SWMS contributor Rhiannon Pacheco writes: Mary Ann Azevedo has long been respected by PR professionals for her prompt and always courteous communication and honest, kind feedback. With her recent move to TechCrunch, accompanied by a new beat, we sat down with her to ask her “Two Questions…”
For the third year running, TechCrunch Disrupt featured the use of TechCrunch CrunchMatch, an in-event app that lets attendees connect directly with one another. In an era when IRL events may never be the same, CrunchMatch may prove to be an important marketing advantage, TC having had such a head start.
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Well, for now it’s Jim Jordan… but such news illustrates the kind of world we seem to be headed for. Adweek has the details, subscription required.
No “predictions” post will appear on this site. That said, quite a number of subscribers have asked for a Zoom/MS Teams presentation on what 2025 will bring. A conversation is precisely the right tool for the job. After the election — and with AI transforming publishing and life — “2025” is best discussed among peers, not predicted. So if you’d like to have a confidential group exchange on what stands to unfold, and why, and how comms pros can come out on top in spite of it all, drop a line and we shall schedule something.
According to Adweek, Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky were in merger talks for eleven and a half months before the transaction was announced this week. Amazing that it didn’t leak.
Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam
New EIC Jamie Heller has asked her reporters to start going on camera — for the BI TikTok channel — to explain the big, deep-divey story they just published. Other publications do this — especially archival Fortune. BI is now on that too. Game on.
At this time last year, Eric Newcomer and his two podcast co-hosts — Max Child and James Wilsterman — each formed an “AI startup fantasy team” and picked five AI startups to seed their rosters. We’re now in year 2 and it’s time to draft again. The podcasters wonder… which startups do they dump? Which do they add? The player whose startups accumulate the most total value by Nov. 1, 2028 is the winner, so there’s plenty of time to make adjustments. Here’s a link to the AI fantasy team podcast — you may need a password. Not sure.
