To find the spirit of Silicon Valley in 2006, you could have done worse than turn to the pages of TechCrunch. That is, if TechCrunch can be said to have pages. An online blog-cum-news service, it has become the place to be seen for a new wave of internet start-ups clamouring for the oxygen of publicity.

That has cast Mike Arrington, the website's highly energetic founder, as the Valley's newest kingmaker - though he rejects any suggestion that his blog has become part of the hype machine on which the Valley's start-up culture relies. "Definitely we rip on a lot of start-ups, but every now and then I find something I really like," he says.