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Arrington: 'Times' Writers Should Quit

Arguing that their employer's legacy infrastructure is flawed to the core, TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington suggests that its "top" 50 reporters quit to form their own startup. "If the top 50 journalists out of The New York Times walked out the door, raised $100 million from a hedge fund and started a site, it would be profitable," Arrington said, speaking at the AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford this week. One problem? New media, with all its fat-trimmed lower overhead costs, doesn't appear to supporting writers -- even at Arrington's own site. Indeed, Arrington admits that only 10-to-20% of TechCrunch's revenue comes from normal online ad on the website, while 50% comes from conferences (the remaining percentage is apparently unspecified).

"We don't think of our business in terms of creating page views and figuring out RPM [revenue per 1,000 impressions]," he added. "We've always had a brand and we've always monetized the brand. We've always focused on keeping costs under control and we've grabbed the biggest money we could, while still being ethical."

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