I was at Flickr’s fourth birthday party tonight in San Francisco with a few hundred Flickr fans, tech geeks, press and Yahoo/Flickr employees.
At some time around 8 pm Dan Farber, the new Editor in Chief of CNET, says, “huh, I just got an email that says, according to [blogger] Robert Scoble, we bought Revision3 for $58 million.” Uh-oh, I thought. I’m in San Francisco, an hour away from my computer. We’re going to be very late to this story.
I asked Farber if it was true. He said if it was this was the first he’d heard of it. A few moments later, after a couple of phone messages back and forth with his team, he said CNET had posted on the rumor (he was joking with me, but I couldn’t read him and thought he was serious). I emailed our team to look into it and cover the story, pulling Mark Hendrickson away from dinner and back to his computer.
I then called someone at Digg, who said something along the lines of “it’s complete bullshit.” After that call I did two things. I told our team to back off the story, and then promptly lied to Farber and said that Digg confirmed the rumor - Revision3 had definitely sold to CNET. Farber (damn him) didn’t bite - he typed a message or two on his phone, then looked at me and said “no, we didn’t.” At that point I laughed and told him what Kevin really said.
Scoble, meanwhile, sheepishly retracted his original Twitter message and the whole ordeal came to a end.
My guess is that 7 or 8 people between CNET and TechCrunch had their evenings at least partially throw into chaos over this. But my only disappointment was that I couldn’t trick Farber into writing a post on CNET that they had acquired Revision3, when it was nothing more than a figment of Robert Scoble’s imagination.
Update: Loic Le Meur gets Farber on video:
That is indeed quite funny. It is even more funny that he is really bitter about flickr and switched over to SmugMug.
It was hardly a figment of my imagination. It came over my iPhone in the Twitter stream. The whole thing was corrected within minutes. The readers fact checked my ass and said I was full of it.
Do I smell a Scoble-gate brewing? Thats it, I think he should ground himself from twitter for awhile.
Robert - what exactly was the original source? And hey, I’m not mad, it’s totally fine that made this up out of thin air.
Since when is a missed story so personal? WTF? Can’t people make choices and screw up and apologize for it? What the hell is this “community” of ours?
And I thought Washington was bad.
Damn Scoble, You cant go anywhere without messing things up.
No hard feelings scoble, I still love you.
Andrew - no apology from scoble is needed or requested. I just think it’s funny how he got us all running around in circles for half an hour.
Michael: it was a story that came from http://r3fresh.com/ and Digg: http://digg.com/tech_news/Brea.....57_million
I saw someone pass that along on Twitter, and passed it along myself. Then got shit for doing so. I should have called Adelson. Sorry.
Is this what Steve Gillmor means by gestures and disruptions?
Revision3 is not worth a million, let alone $58M. Revision3 is, in a nutshell, 2 guys on a couch. There’s no underlying IP. If those two guys leave, Revision3 is nothing.
DaveS, don’t forget the couch.
What is more funny is how much importance we give to things and events
that have to do with our job but then wonder what’s the point of all these.
Heck, what is the point of working?
Nice story either way.
Scoble power.Phenomenon.
What happened to my comment? The story came from Digg and another source. I just passed it along on Twitter, not even on my blog.
Woohoo, scoble, your still up? Come down to Monterey and let’s party!
Robert - your comment was in moderation, probably bc of the links. Approved it.
Mike,
Check out the following photo -
It’s what started the entire thing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jon4-26/2333713077/
Thanks, Mike! Iso, I’m partied out. I need a SXSW detox!
Regardless of whether or not the story is true, doesn’t this seem like something CNET should actually think about pursuing?
You know, acquiring a site that’s related to their core business and relevant to this century.
dude! some tech startup just sold to some other company or something. world continues rotating. developing…
and i like Robert’s explanation. it’s like CNN - “hey - we, uh, we’re just passin it on, yo - we don’t, like, actually do any reporting or anything. you know - repeaters, not reporters. etc.”
way to big up the blogosphere, scoble. lots of happy bloggers rotting in jail cells around the world - all for the privilege of telling the story - but you’re too lazy to make a phone call. brilliant.
p.s. Mike - drop ten cents on your Randian infrastructure and let people sign in - so scoble can quickly defend himself when he passes on bad information next time.
Peter: dude, it was Twitter from a cell phone while I was standing outside of the Flickr party trying to get my kid in. It was literally up for just a few minutes before I corrected it (well, actually, my readers were doing that in live time). Jeessshhh, Mike reported a week ago on his blog that Digg was selling to Google, or something like that. That was an entire blog post that proved to be totally bullpucky, not just a Twitter message (and that one took a lot longer to get fixed).
What a retarded story. Just shows that the media is a bunch of scumbags and morons.
I miss the bad old days. A newspaper would print something wrong.
The next day, or the day after the weekend, they would print a retraction, in tiny print.
Now we are so much in real-time that it’s dizzying.
On another note, I knew there was something I was forgetting for tonight. Oh well, see you next year.
@Rajiv Singh:
what a retarded comment. Just shows that some readers are a bunch of scumbags and morons.
And one other thing Rajiv. If you’re just lurking around these premises just to rant perhaps you should just wait a few weeks for The Officals to Announce what happened.
a happy Techcrunch reader
a
Did anyone seen how Duncan is losing it on his blog, insulting people and calling everyone that doesn’t agree with him names?
How long before he’s out of Techcrunch?
frat boys fifteen years later
The memory of The Three Stooges comes to mind. If you get a snicker from Farber over this, it’ll be more emotion than he usually shows. And you don’t deserve even that.
Twits indeed.
Fire fire fire …. where …. nowhere … just kidding!!!
Funny moment indeed.
I don’t see why this is such a big deal. So, there was a rumor of Rev3 selling. Cool. You know how many people ‘report’ things that are wrong? Just take a look at any rumors site like MacRumors. They’re wrong almost every day.
What’s the big deal about a 20 minute screwup?
and then it hit you… wait, this is a party. Instead of calling up a bunch of people and ruining their night, I should be looking for my Ashley Alexandra Dupre like Call Girl and head back home and take some high res pics of her and I to upload to my Flickr account!
So basically you tried to get CNET to lower their standards to your level, but failed. Great story!
What is more funny is how much importance we give to things and events
that have to do with our job but then wonder what’s the point of all these.
Heck, what is the point of working?
Nice story either way.
I saw someone pass that along on Twitter, and passed it along myself. Then got shit for doing so. I should have called Adelson. Sorry.
Remind me never to subscribe to http://r3fresh.com/
It was also funny when engadget posted a false story about and Apple Iphone delay, and apple lost millions.
You guys need to do a little more research when stories come on a tweet.
props to Farber. “…bush league psych-out bull shit! Laughable, man…”
mike maybe you need to get an eepc for breaking stories. (or for throwing at robert’s head next time he tweets an unsubstantiated rumor
I watched the whole thing go down on twitter. It’s gossip and rumors that get around the fastest. How is this news worthy? Just because Robert read a twitter from a follower that had some ridiculously suspicious rumor about Revision 3 everyone is talking about it. Hahaha. Who would buy Revision3 for 58 million dollars?
The rumor is traced back to Dr. Tiki from Tiki Bar TV…. One of the most dugg podcasts on Digg. Go figure.
here is a video of Dan Farber just as he got the news yesterday at the same party, I am congratulating him on the acquisition!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R0Q7kOuoZJI
@Scoble,
It’s not that BIG of a deal. Twitter is a dangerous thing. News spreads fast and well to be quite honest you are the second most followed person in twitter and one of the most creditable sources. Maybe in the future to double check before twittering might save you all this trouble or Mr. Michael Arrington will cover the mishap.
@ Sarah Meyers
Rumors and gossip are only newsworthy when a top blogger with gets caught up in twittering and gets a little excited. Its a human mistake.
@Michael Arrington
I don’t know if this post really was very newsworthy. I think it is quite humorous, but I think Scoble is taking it the wrong way. Its kind of like telling an embarrassing story to millions of people…oh wait.
Cele mai haioase filme de pe youtube si revver. Un top detaliat al filmuletelor, actualizat zi de zi, pe care te invitam sa-l comentezi. De ce sa cauti pe youtube cand aici poti gasi doar filmuletele cele mai amuzante.
Funny?
I guess you had to be there.
I shouldn’t have posted anything. I was just surprised that revision3 was supposedly being purchased and I’ve gotten tons of crap for it. ugh.
Dan plays Loic mercilessly as only he can. Full cred to Dan for the massive TC wind up.