Chris Dixon

  • September 3, 2009

New York City needs a tech startup blog

At first it seemed like Silicon Alley Insider would be this, but they seem to have moved away from covering NYC startups.

The New York Times covers national tech, as does the WSJ. The majority of their tech articles are about CA companies.

I think for the NYC tech startup ecosystem to really become as vibrant as CA’s, we need a TechCrunch equivalent. I hope someone starts one.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ikirigin Ivan Kirigin

    Well, hopefully it is better than TechCrunch in a few ways. There is a strong bias towards a scooping a story, which is negative for the community. The analysis can be hit or miss.

    Also, I'd bet @erickschonfeld would say there already is something like TechCrunch for NYC. It's called TechCrunch.

    • http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

      It's definitely true TechCrunch covers NY better than anyone else. It's just kind of shame we have to be dependent on West Coast based blogs.

  • http://reecepacheco.com reecepacheco

    Funny… there's a thread/discussion on the NextNY list about running a “Meet the Startups” event in October to bring together NYC tech reporters and founders of NYC startups so they can mix and spread their stories. I know I'd check it out, as I've had trouble getting in touch with reporters at the NY Times etc. Maybe there's some synergy for the live event and a new blog…

    • http://www.marketing.fm EricFriedman

      This was a good thread yes. I would throw http://www.centernetworks.com into the mix. I think there are many smaller blogs that cover different niche areas that cover the scene, but not one rollup brand that is ONLY NYC focused.

  • http://twitter.com/dtunkelang Daniel Tunkelang

    I agree, but I'm not sure who would be incented to start such a blog. It seems like a labor of love without any hope of TechCrunch's monetization. Perhaps a good start would be to have a site that aggregates your blog, Fred Wilson's, Jeremy Levine's, etc. Nothing people can't do already with RSS, but it might generate some critical mass and awareness.

    • http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

      Yeah, I agree it would probably have to be a labor of love. Lack of monetization is probably why SAI got out of focusing on NY startups.

  • Ed Josephson

    There is such a blog: http://www.nyconvergence.com

  • http://www.centernetworks.com centernetworks

    Disappointing that you haven't been to my blog CenterNetworks – I have more NYC startup related coverage than any other blog. I have nearly 200 videos from the NY Tech Meetup, over 100 interviews, hundreds of articles and try to post as much as I can – the hardest part is getting the stories. As I noted on the mailing list, startups seem to only want valley coverage. I wish I could get more stories to post about NYC startups. I'd be happy to meet with you if you would like.

    CenterNetworks is located at http://www.centernetworks.com

    • http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

      Yes, very true. Sorry I didn't mention you. Maybe we need to figure out how to get NYC companies to want to get NYC coverage.

      I'd be happy to get together.

      • NYConvergence

        CenterNetworks provides some great coverage of NYC tech companies. There's also NYConvergence.com, which covers digital media tech news in the NY, NJ, and CT tri-state area. Feel free to check us out.

        Agree with you that there's a lot to cover in the NYC area. Maybe, the three of us should get together?

  • http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com ceonyc

    Why should it matter who covers us? If the best host for your code was on the West Coast and the best lawyer you could find was in Toronto, would you fret that you were dependent on “foreign” vendors for those services? If anything, we're less dependent than ever on media being in brick and mortar in today's world… so does it matter if the coverage isn't local?

    Here's what I wrote on the nextNY thread:

    I think part of the reason is that NYC startups are not looking for “NYC Startup” coverage.

    For example, I had breakfast with Seth Besmertnik of Conductor… Matrix backed, millions in revs, lots of employees… totally kicking ass, yet no one ever mentions Conductor as a top NYC company. He doesn't bother getting coverage as a top startup–he's more concerned with getting coverage in his own industry, which is really search marketing. No one in search marketing really cares if it's a startup–it's just another vendor.
    In the Valley, enough people care about the “startup” industry b/c that's the only industry they have. Here, if you added up the PR that NYC startup companies get within their own industries, it would be a lot of traffic.. .it just gets diffused across a bunch of different industry publications and sites.

    That's why a NYC startup blog/pub has to be like Galyan's. Galyan's was a big box sporting goods store whose goal was that each// department was better than the competing specialty store. So, if you went to their fishing dept, it had to be a better place to get fishing stuff than your local fishing specialty retail store. It's the same here. If you're going to cover advertising startups, you need to dedicate a whole section to ad startups that basically has to be better than Emily Steele's coverage of that market for the WSJ…. otherwise you won't get that advertising audience that cares.

    It's really hard to do, though… You almost need a network of blogs to cover it. BTW… the nextNY blog is an aggregation of NYC tech bloggers and has 700 readers. You should add yours to it and when you blog about NY, just add nextNY as a category for that post. http://blog.nextny.org/

    Here's what I wrote on the nextNY listserv today:

    “I think part of the reason is that NYC startups are not looking for “NYC Startup” coverage.

    For example, I had breakfast with Seth Besmertnik of Conductor… Matrix backed, millions in revs, lots of employees… totally kicking ass, yet no one ever mentions Conductor as a top NYC company. He doesn't bother getting coverage as a top startup–he's more concerned with getting coverage in his own industry, which is really search marketing. No one in search marketing really cares if it's a startup–it's just another vendor.
    In the Valley, enough people care about the “startup” industry b/c that's the only industry they have. Here, if you added up the PR that NYC startup companies get within their own industries, it would be a lot of traffic.. .it just gets diffused across a bunch of different industry publications and sites.

    That's why a NYC startup blog/pub has to be like Galyan's. Galyan's was a big box sporting goods store whose goal was that each department was better than the competing specialty store. So, if you went to their fishing dept, it had to be a better place to get fishing stuff than your local fishing specialty retail store. It's the same here. If you're going to cover advertising startups, you need to dedicate a whole section to ad startups that basically has to be better than Emily Steele's coverage of that market for the WSJ…. otherwise you won't get that advertising audience that cares.

    It's really hard to do, though… You almost need a network of blogs to cover it. “

  • http://twitter.com/keerthibharath Keerthi Bharath

    Techcrunch is becoming more of a paparazzi for tech, like getting access to twitter private docs, gossiping about some CEO marriage and I don't like that.

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  • StartupBlog

    If there is anyone on this list that wants to brainstorm/meet to see how we could get something like this off the ground, please email me at startupblognyc@gmail.com

    • cdixon

      I am fully committed with my startup but am happy to try to be helpful as much as I can.

  • tedhudson

    this is a superb idea.

  • tibbetts

    Xconomy (http://www.xconomy.com/) does a pretty good job in Boston and Seattle, and has branched out to San Diego. I think their style would fit pretty well into NYC. I suspect they were initially put off by Silicon Alley Insider, but now it looks like there is open space for a serious journal of New York technology startups.

    I echo everyone's sentiment: TechCrunch isn't news, it's tabloid, and it's not helping anyone.

    • cdixon

      I like xconomy a lot. I hope they start doing something in NYC.

  • Rokhayakebe

    East Coast vs. West Coast all over again.

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  • http://www.socaltech.com/ Ben Kuo

    Good idea. We run sites for Silicon Valley (http://www.silicontap.com), Southern California (http://www.socaltechcom), Seattle/Portland (http://www.nwinnovation.com), the Rocky Mountains (Colorado/Utah/Arizona/etc.) (http://www.techrockies.com) and Texas (http://www.texastechpulse.com). The key in all of those markets are enough people (VCs/entrepreneurs/service providers) interested in supporting such a venture… That's the tough part in NYC (just ask Jason Calacanis, who already tried that with Silicon Alley Reporter…)

  • http://portal.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    Hi Chris,
    I sent you an email on this- a new super aggregator of NYC Tech news. I'll wait for your quick feedback then open it up for all.

  • http://portal.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    If anyone is still following this, I've opened http://portal.eqentia.com/nyctech as a neutral super aggregator of NYC-tech related news.
    I'm looking for a local curator to take it to the next level. I'll be in NYC next week if anyone is interested, pls drop me a note william AT eqentia dotcom.

  • http://portal.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    If anyone is still following this, I've opened http://portal.eqentia.com/nyctech as a neutral super aggregator of NYC-tech related news.
    I'm looking for a local curator to take it to the next level. I'll be in NYC next week if anyone is interested, pls drop me a note william AT eqentia dotcom.

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