Michael Arrington – Posts don’t have to be ‘Sponge worthy’
by Gil Rosen

In one of the famous “Seinfeld” episodes, Elaine coined the term “Sponge Worthy.” In it, Elaine runs around New York seeking THE SPONGE, her favorite birth control method. She ends up finding one single case at some distant pharmacy. Conservation minded, she has to now stretch the supply by setting standards for “sponge worthiness” of her boyfriends, scrutinizing their bathroom and asking them to pass other tests before finally conceding sex.

When I read Michael’s post about “Who R U” I was reminded of the infamous standard. Why? Because Michael tends to take on an apologetic tone when it comes to covering projects which don’t fall under the classic business model / exit / social network conversion, or as he put it”:

This isn’t a technology showcase, nor does it have a complicated business idea. But like certain other sites we’ve profiled, just because a new web service isn’t necessarily on a liquidity event trajectory doesn’t mean it isn’t worth taking a look at

In the past year, TechCrunch has become the de-facto Reuters of the web 2.0 world. The way I see it, Michael’s focus/ mission is to bring news / headlines / report innovation etc. and he does so diligently. My take is that while cracking out three, four posts a day, there is no need to apologize about a specific post being less ‘worthy’ then others. If its news, its worthy. Can you imagine the NY TIMES editor apologizing that today’s headline is not as good as yesterday’s? Of course not – everybody faces this dilemma when dealing with publishing in the ‘news world” and therefore people have grown to understand the context.

There is one difference though, driven by the way blogs are built, there is no big headline, small headline or cover story picture. From a visual perspective they all seem pretty much the same, which might invoke the need to elaborate (i.e – “this story is not as ‘sponge worthy” as the next). Yet I still hold the opinion that this is really not necessary. A clear description of the service and a mention about the lack of business model is enough, no need to apologize.

My suggestion to Michael is that if he does want to convey some type of disclaimer it should be approached from a different angle and not the apologetic one. Give posts 3 Stars or 3 M’s (for Michaels ) or better yet, SW (for sponge worthiness ) for approval or high expectation and One Star / M / SW for a regular story. In this way it will be like the NY TIMES movie / book review everyone rushes to read the morning after the release.

If you want to talk Sponge Worthiness….make a system out of it

Gil Rosen
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