---
title: "Techcrunch Gets a CEO – Blogs Big Business Now"
date: 2007-03-18
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2007"
    url: "/tag/2007.md"
---

# Techcrunch Gets a CEO – Blogs Big Business Now

Well here I am joining [a Techmeme scrum](https://web.archive.org/web/20100728062036/http://www.techmeme.com/070317/p33#a070317p33) 😉 The big news today is that Michael Arrington announced [a CEO for Techcrunch](https://web.archive.org/web/20100728062036/http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/17/welcome-to-techcrunch-heather/) – Heather Harde, who is currently the SVP of Mergers and Acquisitions at Fox Interactive Media. This really does prove that blogs can be big business – it’s a heck of an achievement head-hunting a senior executive from Rupert Murdoch’s Internet arm (and the owners of MySpace)! It’s also good news for other tech blogs – like Read/WriteWeb, Gigaom, VentureBeat, and indeed any new professional blog – as it validates that blogs can be successful media ventures, given the right focus and a lot of hard work.

It also made me think back about the days when Techcrunch started. Its first post was [June 11 2005](https://web.archive.org/web/20100728062036/http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/06/11/technorati-new-improved/) and the topic was Technorati – ironically in that post Mike mentioned the [Technorati 100](https://web.archive.org/web/20100728062036/http://www.technorati.com/live/top100.html), which he wistfully noted “is the definitive list of popular bloggers on the web.” Little did he know that 21 months later he would be number 3 on that list. Indeed little did I know that I would be number 41!

![](https://web.archive.org/web/20100728062036im_/http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/techcrunch_june05.gif)*Techcrunch logo circa June 2005*

I actually contacted Mike and [Keith Teare](https://web.archive.org/web/20100728062036/http://www.teare.com/its-true-heather-harde-is-new-techcrunch-ceo) (a shareholder in Techcrunch and Mike’s business partner) in that very first week of Techcrunch’s publication. Ivan Pope had pointed out to me a new blog called Techcrunch and so, a few days after their first post, I emailed Keith to find out more. He cc’ed Mike and from there I discovered that both were fans of Read/WriteWeb. Indeed Mike told me he had “been using it for leads on Techcrunch” 🙂 Of course this was back in June 2005 and we all know what happened next: Techcrunch was the first to focus exclusively on web 2.0 startup reviews and as a result it became the main resource for the dot com II boom, which came to be known as Web 2.0. Read/WriteWeb has also done well out of the boom, but my niche turned out to be not quite as mass appealing as Mike’s 😉

It’s been a dizzying time over the past couple of years, but there is a lot more yet to come I’m sure – from Techcrunch *and* the rest of us. Congrats Mike on the move.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/techcrunch_gets_ceo.php))*