When you're top dog, people start to throw dirt at you. It's just the way of the world, right? Michael Arrington, who's caught the Web 2.0 by the tail these days with his growing TechCrunch empire, has had enough. He's had enough of having his integrity attacked and motives questioned. Truth be told, TechCrunch is a business. It's not a public service to the Web 2.0 community, it's not a charity, and it's not a traditional news organization that promises to be objective and balanced. As Arrington says "TechCrunch is different". Everyone needs to accept it, deal with it, and move on. If you don't like what TechCrunch or Arrington are doing, don't read it. For more thoughts, check out Deep Jive Interests, which has replaced Dead 2.0 as my favourite Web 2.0 voice of reason. (By way, whatever happened to Dead 2.0? Is he really dead?).

Everyone's favourite whipping VoIP whipping boy, Vonage, posted third-quarter results that left a lot to be desired. Churn climbed to 2.6% from 2.3% in the second quarter, the cost of acquiring a new customer rose to $254 from $239, while the number of net new subscribers was 205,000 compared with 256,000 in Q2. While the company had a smaller loss ($62-million) than analysts expected, the investment community was disappointed with guidance of 2.2 million to 2.3 million new users in 2006, compared with a previous estimate of 2.3 million to 2.4 million. The company now has 2.05 million customers, compared with 1.85 million at the end of Q2 and 1.06 million a year earlier. Vonage shares were down 1% in early-morning trading to $6.80 (compared with the 52-week low of $6.30). The question facing investors is whether Vonage can gain enough critical mass and reduce marketing/acquisition costs so it can compete with the cablecos, which are aggressively gaining market share.  

I'm heading down to New York on Sunday morning with b5media colleagues Jeremy Wright and Aaron Brazell for Ad Tech. On Sunday afternoon, we'll be hanging out at Gatsby's at 53 Spring St. to watch Aaron's beloved Baltimore Ravens take on the Cincinnati Bengals. If you're a blogger and/or attending Ad-Tech, come join us! Aaron has more details here.

A little Web 2.0 math: one acquisition (Wired Digital acquires Reddit) involving a company with four employees that received $100,000 of seed capital = frenzy within the blogosphere. Can anyone say "echo chamber"?