KillerStartups Killed? View Comments
*Please note the important update at the end of this post
One way that a new blogger can get story ideas and make a name for themselves is to report on new and interesting startups, the problem has been how do you find out about a startup early enough to get the scoop? The main service that I was aware of was KillerStartups.com, they saw the need, the niche, and acted with great success. The problem that appeared was the sheer amount of new startups interested in the publicity made it impossible for detailed coverage of any of them. The cookiecutter information that became the standard fare on KillerStartups, while still useful, left open a door for competition that could do a better job providing coverage.
TechCrunch’s Crunchbase has been steadily gaining users in this arena and with the recent addition of an API and KillerStartups’ decline, has taken the lead according to Google Trends (it’s recent integration into Zemanta means you’ll see more of it from me):
Google Trends Data for Startup Info
Still, it’s hard to scoop TechCrunch with their own database, so other startups have entered the field, two that I’ve used and think are notable are TradeVibes and YouNoodle. If you check out the Alexa data you can see that YouNoodle is enjoying a spike in traffic among Alexa users. And while Alexa data is generally considered less than ideal, in this case it might be a better indicator of where web-savy users are getting their information:
Page Views by Alexa Users
The Alexa data also seems to show some hope for KillerStartups, but the Google Trends data is showing a clear flatline. So, we get back to the title of this post, does the way KillerStartups delivers information still have a place? Can they bounce back or has KillerStartups been killed?
(Disclosure for this post) TradeVibes “Be The VC” Winner is Me!
*Update! – Please be sure to take a look at the comments and note that the Quantcast directly measured results back up what the Alexa results show, a significant bounce back up in traffic and a hefty lead in readership over Crunchbase.
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