AOL acquires TechCrunch, How and Why it happened? [TechCrunch]

Well its a fact that TechCrunch is now in AOL's hands. This is how it all started, according to TechCrunch's Founder Michael Arrington:

"In May I had a chance to interview Tim on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt: New York. After the talk we went to the speaker room for a quick private chat (this happens after most talks unless the speaker has to rush out).

Tim asked me how things were going at TechCrunch. I told him I was exhausted after five years but that a recent move to Seattle made it easier to balance my life. I joked that I was half retired.

“That’s too bad, he said, we’d love to acquire you but we’d need to know you would stick around.”

“Wait. What? Yeah I’m great! Lots of energy, I’m having so much fun! Will probably do this for the rest of my life.” "

As Michael says he stays on(A crucial thing for TechCrunch) and according to him there was no discussion about that thereafter until late july when the discussions started again and the deal came through. The reason why Michael Arrington decided to go for the deal is that he was tired of solving tech issues and engineering issues on the site, he rather wanted to focus only on writing and not breaking his head on solving technical issues.

What it means for 'TechCrunch the Brand'?

The TechCrunch comes under AOL and its blogging network and there is absolutely no worries for TechCrunch on issues concerning the site engineering and they would focus on writing some leg pulling content as they do so often. And to add to that TechCrunch as brand under AOL's Marketing and it should go places.

On a closing note this is what Michael Arrington had to say:

"On a final note, I don’t want to get all teary-eyed here, but the best comment I ever saw on TechCrunch was years ago in response to when I quipped something like “This is my blog and I’ll write what I want” in response to a troll. The response was “No Mike, This is OUR blog. You just work here.” "

This post was written by: Sridhar

Sridhar is a professional blogger, social media enthusiast and a huge twitter addict. Follow him on Twitter