It continuously surprises/annoys me that TechCrunch is one of the most submitted domains here on HN. Nearly every article has a breathless, faux-drama tone about it that's better suited for PerezHilton than a tech blog. And yet their readership appears to be way beyond that of, say, a Mashable or a ReadWriteWeb.
I guess it just proves that human nature persists regardless of one's technical inclinations. 'Valley' gossip, evidently, always has takers.
It's unfortunate that such a direction gets more attention and more views. But such is life. If you're giving away the content and charging advertisers, then to some degree you're a slave to the almighty pageview metrics. This doesn't have to mean serving up trash to the lowest common denominator, but that's the easiest and most immediately profitable strategy. (Other strategies might include going upscale / higher quality / niche, and then charging advertisers a premium based on the demographic breakdown of the readership).
