Are Tech Blogs The Hello Magazine Of The Online World?
One thing that I have noticed since working in this space is the amount of hype that one single industry can create within itself. Every single announcement no matter how small or trivial is blogged about, tweeted, re tweeted, linked to, shared on Facebook, video reviewed etc. The pattern is pretty simple in that it first gets covered by big blogs like Techcrunch and Mashable and it filters down and is disseminated through the internet by a legion of smaller followers. I have never seen an industry quite like it for the hype. A new and trendy service can be adding something like a small button or tab to their homepage and it will be sensationalized into a story of huge importance.
Really? A new feature being added to a website is big news now? I can’t remember who said it to me but somebody once commented that sites like Techcrunch and Mashable are like the Hello or OK magazines of the tech world and I tend to agree that they are just a huge continuous hype machine churning out sensational stories and glamorizing tech. Is that a bad thing? Not at all in my opinion and the 4 million odd people who read Techcrunch by RSS must be enjoying it and so do I. The one issue that I do have is that it can be very deceiving for entrepreneurs in that the success stories are always glamorized and made to seem very achievable. They are achievable but they take a huge amount of hard work, luck and financing and for every Twitter there are 1000s of failed start ups we never hear about.
Much in same way as young girls look up to Brad and Angelina and dream that they could have their lives of luxury one day there are also tech entrepreneurs all over the world who load up the pages of Techcrunch and see themselves in the shoes of Mark Zuckerberg running Facebook and having billion dollar valuations.We all need to dream a little and these tech blogs let us all do that on a daily basis and the real beauty of the Internet is that it is such a level playing field that you really can make it. You can be the next Zuckerberg but just don’t forget that he was a programming genius who has raised close to a billion in funding and has a team of 100s of talented engineers in Silicon Valley so you and your mate sitting in your bedroom with a couple of grand are naturally going to have a tougher time making it. No harm dreaming though!
I guess the moral of the story is to read it all with a pinch of salt and don’t get too wrapped up in all the hype.
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