A little over 2 years ago FeedBurner did a case study on the growth of TechCrunch, and the phenomenal amount of growth it had achieved since it’s start in 2005. Since then in 2007 TechCrunch had harvested up to 419k readers not counting the people who visit TC on a daily basis but don’t subscribe to the RSS feed. Now it appears TechCrunch has become a household name, reaching 715k subscribers, and boosting the companies CEO Michael Arrington to web celebrity hall of fame (he is my idol.) Also stated in a recent interview “inside TechCrunch” where Sarah Lacey interviews Arrington 37 (turns 38 tomorrow March 13.)

Our revenue in 2006 was $800k last year revenue was around $3 Million.

He also states that he had turned down an $8 Million, but sells himself short on a $100 Million evaluation. Overall I think TechCrunch is one of the brightest companies I can think of right now. It may be just a well maintained blog, but the type of audience they capture is so important that they have the ability to change the way new media is presented. Thus making it a staple to the web 2.0 world, and an as important if not more significant publication than the wall street journal.

American Express has been advertising their PlumCard website recently featuring Jim Davis and his company MusicDirect. Here is the ad:

Music Direct is a website that sells CDs, vinyl, music hardware, cables, analog gear, and hi-fidelity music equipment. AmEx has been trying to appeal to small business owners, especially those with big aspirations. The previous PlumCard commercial featured new trendy frozen yogurt company pinkberry.

The Plum Card marketing campaign is flawless, they even have an expensive adwords account for several terms as shown here in a full blown report from netbanker regarding the “Scarcity Marketing” technique used by AmEx to attract consumers. I personally think it is a brilliant move by AmEx to appeal to the growing small business and start up crowd by opening a niche market. This is credit cards we are talking about here, the entire idea behind them is to feel rich or exclusive. It is a status thing, so people in business are going to be attracted to that.