I remember it well: back in June 2005, I sent Michael Arrington an email criticizing his personal blog design. I also remember that design quite well – it really did look like crap. Mike and I had been blogging about similar subjects and exchanging blog post comments. Back then I was blogging at webreakstuff.com (which became my company), and Mike was starting Techcrunch. Those exchanges and that particular email I sent eventually led to Mike asking me to design Techcrunch. I needed a challenge and decided to take him up on the offer. Eventually the design launched, reader numbers grew, time passed.

A couple months later, on August 25th, I got a long email from Mike. An email which shows a side of Mike that most people sadly don’t get to see, and which included the following:

I’ve spent some time discussing edgeio with you and skirting the idea of you working with us. I believe you are a perfect fit for what we need right now. You have the skills we need and more, and I enjoy working with you. One thing I tend not to do is sell myself. I like to let my history speak for itself. But I am going to do a little selling here. (…)

I am going to rent a house next week and we will base operations there until we get a proper office. It will be at least 3 bedrooms and you are free to stay there rent free if you’d like to. (…) Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested. You are our guy.

About three weeks later, I was landing at SFO and moving into what for the 4 following years was called the Techcrunch HQ – or simply Mike’s place. In addition to working on Edgeio, in which I served as designer/developer, I was designing and writing for Techcrunch. I was seeing first-hand the beginning of what the site is today, but neither Mike or I had any idea of what the future would look like. I remember paying close attention to the blog’s reader numbers, installing the first analytics. I remember when people started just showing up at the door to talk about stuff for posts. I remember the first few times we went out to see other startups – like going out to meet Chris Messina and the rest of the Flock folks who were working from a garage in Palo Alto.

I remember going to bed and Mike being up, writing. I remember waking up, and Mike being up, writing. “Did you get any sleep?” – the answer was often “Nah”. That was okay. We’d go out for tacos, write a few posts, meet people, sleep. I remember suggesting throwing a party. I remember that first one well: Jeff Clavier, Keith Teare, Clarence Wooten and a bunch of other people showed up. The second one we did had a lot more people, demos in the living room TV, Dave McClure giving out Simply Hired tshirts. I remember Chad Hurley showing up to talk to me about doing design work for a startup he was working on (I might tell that story in a future post). The parties would continue to grow. The blog would continue to grow.

These days, Techcrunch is huge – Mike talks about how big it is in his post at Uncrunched. With the growth, a lot of things happened. People got hired, the blog grew a personality (a huge share of which was a mirror of Mike’s own), it took center stage in Silicon Valley, and got acquired. Some people started loving Techcrunch, some people started hating it. It is easy to criticize Mike because he has an opinion, just as it is easy to criticize Techcrunch because as an entity, it has an opinion too. And criticize people shall, as it is their nature. But having been there, knowing Mike, knowing the blog, my opinion is perhaps tainted.

I want Techcrunch to succeed, but I know Techcrunch isn’t the same as it was before. If I had to bet, I’d bet on whatever Mike does next, over Techcrunch itself. TC employs talented people – people who I believe are too good to be left at a blog that lost its core -, like the frequently criticized but brilliant writer MG Siegler. Techcrunch may survive because it became a goliath: but it will survive soulless. And now that it’s been a year since the AOL acquisition, I wish I could have just called Mike a year or so ago, and asked him to reconsider their offer.

“Did you get any sleep?” – “Nah.”

Amazon unveiled their new line of Kindle devices today, from the $79 regular and $99 Touch, to the $199 Kindle Fire – an Android-based tablet set to compete with devices like the iPad. At this point it is hard to speculate on the impact the Fire will have on the market, but it is easy to assume that the new double-digit priced Kindle Touch will sell insanely well.

While there was no question that the Kindle was a great device, the old price of $139 made it a non-trivial buy for many avid book readers. A kindle with touch (touch makes a lot of sense if you’ve ever used a Kindle) for $99 dollars is a no-brainer. It’s the best e-ink device out there, and now also the cheapest. As soon as they find a way to ship them worldwide (at the time of this writing, all new Kindle devices are marked as U.S. only), they’re set to make a mint.

My question at this point, and the interesting bit of the speculation, is on the impact of the Fire. This because while the media are talking about the Fire as Amazon’s iPad killer, I’m not sure that’s what it is. The Fire will not kill the iPad, but it just might blast the Nook and most Android tablets out of existence.

If the Fire does email, book reading and web browsing well enough, other tablet manufacturers are going to have a hard time competing for a couple of main reasons: price ($199 is very competitive) and the ecosystem (Amazon has store offerings in apps, video, mp3 and books). The reason why I don’t believe it’ll compete against the iPad is because people who buy the iPad are probably interested in doing more than email, reading books and browsing the web.

The bottom-line is this: if you want a tablet to do email or read books, the Fire is extremely compelling. If you want a tablet that does email, books and a whole lot more, you probably don’t need a lot of convincing to chip in the $499 for the iPad 2. All this being said: Amazon just became a key player in the tablet market.

John Gruber just posted a link to an open letter by Cole Brodman, CMO at T-Mobile, on the iPhone. The letter itself is inconsequential, but something in there caught my eye. This sentence:

Android has evolved quickly from geek to chic. In many ways, Android is rivaling and even outpacing the iPhone, including consumer adoption, market share and capabilities like support for faster 4G networks.

Cole Brodman is a marketer and I, as definitely many others, have learned to take the words of a marketer with a pinch of salt. He is just doing his job. However I have to disagree with his point that Android has evolved from geek to chic. The way the phone market has evolved proves that Android is stealing share from dumb phones, which is far from being “chic” as Cole says.

Android is a great ecosystem of hardware and software, and they have been very successful at convincing people of making the leap to a smartphone. Also, that choosing Android is a great choice if all they need is a phone. This is also the thing that sets the iPhone apart. The iPhone isn’t selling you just the idea of a phone that does email and the web, or the idea of a particular handset, of open, or of a particular functionality. They’re selling you a system, a brand, and something that can’t quite be explained because it is a feeling, not a feature.

This is why the iPhone is getting the geeks who care about the experience of the future, and the actual “chic” market of people who want what’s most desirable. Android isn’t in the business of selling a feeling – and herein lies the big secret. I know I’m talking about feelings in an article on phones, but until Android nails their positioning, they’re not chic, but may be perceived as cheap instead.