I voted it up, although I disagree. I believe the power of TechCrunch lies not in the amount of RSS subscribers, or Twitter followers, rather it is the most connected player.<p>What I mean by this is they are arguably the biggest influencers of influencers. Here is a related Ted Video: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_networks_predict_epidemics.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_netw...</a><p>If I understand the autor's argument correctly, TechCrunch is an "epicenter of the saga", but this does not mean they are influential to the outcome.<p>Following the insights derived from "Network Theory" you only need a hand full of highly connected nodes broadcasting the same information and an idea can be spread to in the entire network. Interesting article how only >10% of the population with an unshakable believe can "convert" the entire population. <a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/07/28/minority-rules-why-10-percent-is-all-you-need/" rel="nofollow">http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/07/28/minority-rules-why-10...</a><p>I asume this understanding led Mr. Chesky & Mr. Graham to mainly correspond & respond to articles posted by "the epicenter of the sag".