T/S: Defamer v. Gawker

http://hamthechimp.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/i-hate-a-lot-of-people-on-fox-news/

yeah i don't think so ksh

i wish Gawker would stop linking to Gawker.tv because every post there makes me furious

expand

don't click on the posts that make you furious

pro tip

this week whiney i kind of imagine so full of rage that you walk around brooklyn berating trees and squirrels

ive never read either of these sites

ah shit now i sound like the I DONT EVEN OWN A TV guy. no judgement intended

gawker is max's blogspot it's pretty cool

can't believe that max used to write for notalentwhatsoever.com.... smh

No discussion of the New Yorker profile of Nick Denton yet? Apparently there was in New York too but I haven't seen that yet. I thought the most interesting aspect was Denton's futureshock impatience with old media wasn't matched with any great understanding of how to make his new model profitable (quite apart from the fact that I find the hustling-for-page-views model depressing and reductive). I found these quotes about the future of journalism telling (and depressing) because he really has no idea how things are going to shake down.

“I think of us as being a little like the friendly barbarians,” Denton said. “You know, like, when the Roman Empire fell, there were the tribes that had come out of Mongolia, and each one that came was fleeing some other yet more barbarian group of barbarians. We’re the barbarians who can actually—probably—be hired to defend your gates.”

"Maybe this is like Craigslist, where billions of dollars of value is destroyed, and only a tiny fraction of that is actually captured by the new winners. Or you could look at it like this is the early days of cable. You know, cable took a long time to get off the ground. But then, once you’ve got the franchise established, if you own MTV or the sci-fi channel, at some point it really starts to kick in."

Full 10,000-word article here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_mcgrath

I wonder how MTV would have fared in the early days if instead of videos from Joan Jett and Erasure it was filled with NIBs about 11-year-olds being attacked by cats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hz31FDhY4qw

Why would the HuffPo want to murder Max with a bus?

~~~~miss u~~~~

his 'new' model is profitable!

I meant to say "very" profitable. It makes money but not (yet) enough to make it a major new paradigm, and most of it is off specialist porn and gadget sites.

"At the outset, he had assumed that, in order to be viable, each individual site would need to achieve a million monthly page views; that threshold, he believes, is now twenty million. He has since sold Wonkette, shut down Oddjack, and folded Defamer into Gawker proper"

"Gawker itself has an audience about equivalent to that of PBS.org. The “geek” sites, as Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Kotaku, io9, and Jalopnik are known internally, bring in twice the traffic of the “gossip” sites"

"given the thin margins of online publishing, Denton’s cultural impact greatly exceeds his revenues, which are somewhere on the order of fifteen to twenty million dollars a year"

who cares that most of it is off porn? most of newspapers' profits were off classified ads, not great reporting.

Beyond the profitability (or not) of his empire, is it too naive to ask what his empire contributes? What sort of impact it has in the world?

(I'm asking because I don't read his sites. Although gizmodo seems to have some pretty freakin good SEO if my Google searches are representative at all)

it brings max to the world

xpost. I'm working off Denton's own quotes, specifically the Craigslist comparison. Even he doesn't seem sure where the big money's going to come from.

i'm a regular gawker reader, and max's work is great, really great. kotaku is the worst-written site in the world though.

Oh yeah! is this your page max? http://gawker.com/people/Glen_Runciter/posts/

not most of its on porn at all. fleshbot is the worst-performing site, as i think the article says.

but yeah he has no idea how its going to shake out. but no one does!! hes making a bet about the future (http://beta.gawker.com), just like everyone else is.

The “geek” sites, as Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Kotaku, io9, and Jalopnik are known internally, bring in twice the traffic of the “gossip” sites, suggesting that British-inflected class angst may not be a long-term-growth model.

writing on the wall for your style there max : (

i guess? thats an demographics-of-the-internet thing more than anything else

gawk is still the second-biggest site on the network though thats as much b/c its the oldest

whatever, Glen

i was joking max. if anything, i find your posts lack british-inflected class angst!

i liked tom scoccas take on the profile even if i didnt entirely agree with it

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/scocca/archive/2010/10/11/nick-denton-is-in-the-new-yorker.aspx

aw caek ive never heard a bigger compliment in my life

"geek sites do better than gossip sites" doesnt necc mean "gossip sites lose money"

and yeah, it wasnt just classifieds that propped up newspapers. it was auto sections, home buyer's guides, lifestyle specials. twas ever thus.

i dunno, maybe you could try a little sprinkling of british-inflected class angst? xxp

"geek sites do better than gossip sites" doesnt necc mean "gossip sites lose money"

― candid gamera (s1ocki), Tuesday, October 26, 2010 4:30 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

right, and it's web publishing, which is not a business that lives or dies on profit margins. if you're not losing money you're ok.

this blog will beat them all: http://hroexegesis.com

wait is max's nom de plume really named after a character out of a philip k dick novel

I don't read gawker but maybe this is what pushes me over the edge

the posts are coming from inside the half-life chamber

read hroexegesis instead

As in many of his writings, Carles is here concerned with the ways in which neoliberalism has stripped subjects of the very presumption of security as an anchoring concept around which to develop a reflexive sense of self.

a bit http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=82861

dude also writes http://www.popmatters.com/pm/blogs/marginal-utility/

but let's just hope hroexegesis really is a joke

That Slate blog post is great - nice way of nailing what feels off about Denton's quotes. There's no joy in there. That, more than the financial aspect, is what depressed me about the piece. No disrespect to max or anyone who else who writes for Gawker but great editors project passion for the form, whatever that form may be. Denton (here at least) just projects pragmatism. He hates the old media but can't seem to match it with love for the new.

he's the publisher not the editor no?

So? He's the guy who's personality and vision shapes the whole enterprise.

i would judge the product, not the personality of the boss as it comes across in magazine profiles, tbh

i dont think anyone actually believes nick denton is going to take over and shape all media ever.