Today in pointless victories comes one for former Noxema girl Rebecca Gayheart and her Gray’s Anatomy spouse, Eric Dane.

The two were featured in a widely viewed sex tape most prominently disseminated on Gawker. The clip, a fairly seedy affair that features the pair engaging in a wild night of sex and smokable substances with Keri Ann Peniche, has been floating around the internet ether since August of last year. Although countless people have screencapped, torrented and saved the footage in that year, Gawker has been tied up in court over it since September of last year.

In a statement, a Gawker spokesperson contends that use of the clip was protected, but the legal wrangling had become too large of a pain in the ass:

“Although we are confident that our use of the video on Gawker was protected fair use, because the posts already had been available to our readers for nearly a year, and because we already had won an important decision from the court striking large parts of the plaintiffs’ damages claims, we agreed to remove the posts as part of a global settlement to avoid the burden of further litigation,” Gawker COO Gaby Darbyshire said in a statement.

In exchange for Gawker pulling the material, Gayheart and Dane will drop their $1m lawsuit against the blog network.

Gawker closes barn door year after horse bolts, removes Rebecca Gayheart/Eric Dane sex tape is a post from: The Inquisitr

Avid Life Media, the parent company of esteemed web properties like HotorNot.com, Mancrunch and married-people dating site Ashley Madison, has put in a $20m bid for PerezHilton.com, Gawker has verified.

The company, who is said to have paid roughly the same amount for HotorNot.com in 2008, has teamed up with celebrity bloggers Zack Taylor (zacktaylor.ca) and Nik Richie (TheDirty.com)- sending a Letter of Intent with the $20m offer. ($18m up front and $2m in escrow for the next year.)

The offer, presented by “Avid Life subsidiary Eight Days Inc., along with Zack Taylor and Dirty World LLC,” seems to suggest Perez may not be as involved with day to day operations of the site as he may be now- Gawker quotes the letter:

The letter states that “The Purchaser presently intends to continue, in the normal course, the employment of all employees of the Business from and after the Closing Date.” But it also says that following the purchase, Zack Taylor and Nik Richie “will operate the business.” It’s our understanding that the intention is to use the PerezHilton.com address as a sort of massive traffic-forwarding address to a new gossip site run by Taylor and Richie.

Gawker asked what Perez’s future involvement with the site might be if he accepts the offer, but Avid Life spokesperson Steph Davidson said she could not comment because she didn’t know for sure what the celebrity blogger’s role would be if the bid is accepted.

Perez hasn’t commented on the offer yet or whether he intends on taking it. PerezHilton.com was valued at $32m last year, but $20m is a tremendous incentive for Perez to cash out and move on.

Gawker: Avid Life Media bids $20m for PerezHilton.com is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Gothamist blog network (sometimes know as the “ist” network) is believed to have been acquired by Cablevision subsidiary Rainbow Media for $5-$6 million.

Founded by Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung in 2003, the Gothamist network was among the first wave of blog networks, and was possibly the first serious player in the local blogs space.

The network grew to 14 city centric blogs, including a number of cities outside North America. According to Quantcast, the network does 2.9 million page views a month on 2.1 million uniques.

For memory, the network has never taken any serious funding, so the exit is a well earned one over seven years, which is something close to 70 years in blog years.

Paid Content reports though that the deal may isn’t finalized yet, but is close.

Congrats to David and the team.

Gothamist Blog Network Acquired For $5-$6 Million is a post from: The Inquisitr

Numbers aren’t clear at this stage, but it’s believed that around 15-20 bloggers have been dumped in this round.

As we reported previously, b5media is planning on firing all contracted bloggers as part of a reform process headed by former Gawker Editor Elizabeth Spiers.

In related news, despite redirecting what were supposed to be the most heavily trafficked sites at b5media, new b5media blog Crushable has so far failed to impress, both in content and traffic.

Despite the big investment and an initial launch spike, the site has slowly lost rank on Alexa, tracking a 7 day average of 16,507 and a rank yesterday of 26,960.

I give them 6 months now, although that’s probably generous.

b5media Dumps Women Bloggers is a post from: The Inquisitr

The move by b5media yesterday to terminate the contracts of over 50 bloggers writing for its now defunct entertainment network is the first stage in the mass firing of all contract bloggers, The Inquisitr has learned.

The full number of bloggers to be fired remains unclear at the time of writing, but is believed to be somewhere between 100 and 150 contract bloggers.

Confirmation of the move is backed by former Gawker Editor Elizabeth Spiers, who would now appear to have taken a senior role at the company.

On her personal blog, Spiers writes

One of my larger clients is launching a new lifestyle site and relaunching three others and I need new staffers for all of them. (We’re basically tearing them down and starting over—redesigning them, restructuring editorially and adding lots of new original content.)

On her Tumblr blog she confirms that the client is b5media:

More background on Crushable and what else I’ve been working on: one of my clients is b5media a Toronto-based (but quickly moving to New York) web publishing network

Notably Spiers also claims that b5media is doing 30 million page views a month across the network currently, a claim so fanciful I’ve only just stopped laughing after reading it (see the Alexa ranks for the remaining sites in this post.) But I digress.

Spiers does bring experience to the role, having worked at both Gawker and MediaBistro, however this is her first time running (alone) a multi-title content network like this (note she was a founder of Dead Horse Media.) The decision to not include existing content in new pop blog Crushable may indicate that she is may be already be out of her depth when it comes to simple things like SEO and the value of Google.

To rub salt into the wounds of existing bloggers for the network, Spiers is also advertising for contributors; we’d guess that this may indicate a shift of payment model from b5media’s previous mix of rev share and flat rates to a payment per post model.

If you’re writing for b5media currently and haven’t started looking for a new writing gig yet, now would be a good time to start.

b5media To Fire All Remaining Contract Bloggers, Approx 100-150 People is a post from: The Inquisitr

The reaction wasn’t positive, with bloggers who had been with the company since its earliest days receiving the same generic “you’re fired” email along with more recent recruits.

We now have a copy of the email sent to the fired bloggers. We’ll let you decide whether this is (as some have suggested) a disgusting way to treat the people who worked hard for you, often for not much pay for years. The name of the recipient has been removed for privacy reasons.

February 16, 2010

DELIVERED BY E-MAIL
PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL

Dear (omitted),

Re: Termination of Contract Effective February 16, 2010

We are writing to inform you of the termination of your contract with b5media Inc., effective February 16, 2010. Over the past six months, the Company has progressively made significant strategic changes to refocus and regenerate its business. This termination of your contract is needed to support the changes made to our corporate structure and business operations.

In accordance with the terms of your contract for (omitted), your contract with b5media will terminate effective immediately. Subsequent to the termination of your contract, you will receive all amounts owing to you up to and including March 1, 2010, which will meet or exceed our notice commitments in the contract. You should receive your payment by March 1, 2010.

If you have any questions regarding this change and both of our obligations under the contract, please review the contract, contact us at info@b5media.com, or phone our office at 647-260-1717. I would like to personally thank you very much for your contribution to b5media. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Yours truly,

Elaine Kunda
President & CEO

b5media: The Termination Email is a post from: The Inquisitr

The mass sackings at blog network b5media today have been revealed to be part of a launch process for a new single b5media celebrity site.

The new site, Crushable.com is due to launch Wednesday and is headed by a formerly little known Media Bistro blogger by the name of Amanda Ernst.

Details on the new site are thin, and the once highly open new media company has continued to keep silent on the new site, and mass blogger firings.

Reaction across the blogosphere to the b5media blogger massacre has been entirely negative, with former bloggers (both now former and previously former) in particular putting the boot in.

Wendy Boswell somes up the overall reaction well on Twitter, writing “Shame on you @andreanyc for using b5media firings as part of your launch strategy.”

Highlighting the (what some would suggest is disgusting*) manner in which the process was handled, Arieanna Schweber, one of b5media’s first writers and a key member of the team wasn’t given warning either, writing on Twitter: “To all who are wondering, this news from b5 today was a shock to me too. No communication was sent to me. I don’t know yet how I’m affected.”

Companies including Splashpress Media have today reached out with opportunities for the fired bloggers.

*Note, I’m still technically under an agreement with b5media so can’t offer personal opinion here

B5media To Launch New Celebrity Site Wednesday, Bathed In Fired Blogger Blood is a post from: The Inquisitr

Blog network b5media has fired over 50 bloggers as part of a complete shut down of its entertainment blogs.

The purged included some of the networks longest serving bloggers who worked for b5media prior to funding (see disclosure at the end.)

The move would appear to be part of the ongoing process to restructure b5media for sale since the appointment of Elaine Kunda as CEO in July 2009.

The decision to terminate the Entertainment channel may indicate more serious issues for b5media. Former CEO Jeremy Wright maintained publicly and privately for many years that the entertainment blogs were the back bone of b5media; that they have fallen on bad days may indicate that b5media’s prospects going forward may be in terminal decline.

The roll up of various blogs last year, although a solid idea, also may have been a case of missing the boat. None of the rolled up sites are doing significant traffic according to Alexa.

We’re now putting b5media on death watch.

(disclosure: I was a founder of b5media but have had nothing to do with the company in many years.)

Mass Firings At b5media: Entire Entertainment Network Shut is a post from: The Inquisitr

Canadian tech journalist Mathew Ingram has forgone for the corporate teet and joined the GigaOm blog network.

Ingram writes on GigaOm that “As the web has filled up with fast-food-style news hits and me-too blog posts, each more shallow than the last, I think the kind of intelligent and insightful coverage GigaOM specializes in has become even more important now, and I hope to be able to contribute to that.”

Ingram and I haven’t seen eye to eye over the years, but although we may have had our disagreements he is one of the smarter tech writers in the space, and certainly up there as one of the best tech writers in Canada. Besides, I love seeing career journalists switch from newspapers (Ingram was at the Globe and Mail for 15 years) to new media outlets; although he is one of many, it’s further evidence that there is there a profitable, sustainable future in new media. It also shows again that there is a future for talented old school journalists, one that pays the bills, away from newspapers, despite the rubbish we hear from those in heritage media who are ignorant of what is going on in the space.

The GigaOm network would appear to be going from strength to strength, and stands today as one of the few companies outside of AOL that is going well with the many blogs blog network model that has mostly gone out of favor in the last 12-18 months.

Mathew Ingram Joins GigaOm is a post from: The Inquisitr

AOL has announced that its new strategy is to copy Demand Media through automated topic creation and mass outsourcing of writing to freelancers.

According to a report that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal, “AOL is putting the finishing touches on a high-tech system for mass-producing news articles, entertainment and other online content.”

The new system will identify topics people are searching for, them pump out content to match that via a new AOL outsourcing site called Seed.com.

What isn’t clear from the report is how this strategy will affect blogs within the AOL network; CEO Tim Armstrong is talking about revolutionizing content delivery and as one site put it, “largely replacing his editorial staff with robots.” Most of those editorial staff members work across AOL content sites, the core of which use to be the Weblogs Inc network. It would be insanity damaging sites like Engadget for example by replacing existing editorial direction with robots and on demand freelancers (vs permanent freelances writing for the site specifically.) And yet, the idea is being pitched as across the board, suggesting that the existing blogs will likely be driven by automated editorial as well.

The model, the issue with the existing blogs aside, isn’t a bad one and the success of Demand Media shows that. However, the success of the model relies primarily on search results (vs reader loyalty) and that’s a model that is inherently risky, particularly when the model on the scale AOL is proposing to do it, complete with internal linking, is not far removed from search engine spamming.

AOL’s Latest Brainwave: Lets Copy Demand Media is a post from: The Inquisitr

One of the best up and coming tech blogs in the last 12 months has been The Next Web. We’re big fans here at The Inquisitr, and the site not only brings a much welcomed European take on tech news, but has also taken the good fight to many of the established players in the United States.

The Next Web has been on the expansion path in 2009, increasing its coverage by expanding into a range of countries including places like Romania, Turkey and Argentina. Since we last covered The Next Web’s expansion into 10 new countries, the site has followed up with even more, including an Australian version of The Next Web (17 country sites in total.)

Unlike many sites that start as sites and expand into conferences and events, The Next Web started as a conference and expanded into blogging. That’s a strength, but likewise there’s a very good reason many sites don’t rapidly grow into so many countries: it’s difficult; difficult to monetize and difficult to manage. On one hand it may be an inspired decision that could pay huge dividends for the site, but at the same time based on what others have done before hand, it could also be pure insanity.

There’s only one way to find out, so I sent through some questions to Next Web Editor Zee:

How is The Next Web managing so many blogs in so many languages from both an editorial and quality/ quantity of content angle?

With most of the blogs, we actually started by speaking to our existing readers in specific countries we wanted to expand into. With their help, we found writers who are into tech, fluent in their own language and we then ask the readers to monitor the blogs for us. They are essentially our eyes and ears for that specific blog.

How are you able to monetize so many different countries effectively? (and to that, is the primary push back to the core Next Web conference product as the earner?)

Most of the international blogs are not there to make money from. We genuinely want to bring technology news to areas that until now, haven’t been able to receive it in their local language. We also feel the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. In other words: not every blog has to make money and not even the whole blog as a whole needs to generate a lot of traffic to be valuable for a lot of people, including us.

That said, there are other blogs (eg.UK, Europe, Asia, Germany, France, Middle East) that we do want to monetize and yes, the conferences (once we’ve developed a solid trusting relationship with our editors) will be one of the channels we explore.

How goes the international expansion so far? I note particularly a significant improvement in your Alexa rank that would indicate increased traffic.

So far so good as they say, but a long long way to go and many kinks to iron out. Initial results are positive though and with our continent blogs in English and many of the local blogs reporting news from their country to the continent editors – we expect some pretty strong growth over the course of the year.

But yes, as you say Alexa, but also Technorati, Compete have also shown strong growth.

The Next Web International Expansion: Inspired or Insanity? Let’s Find Out is a post from: The Inquisitr

You know times are on the up when Nick Denton starts launching new blogs instead of flogging them off or shuttering them, and today Gawker Media turned the tide of the last 18 months with a new blog Gawker.TV.

Gawker TV offers a range of videos from the Gawker network, as well as content from around the web. According to the official pitch:

Amazingly cheesy 80’s and 90’s music videos, the best comedy sketches in existence, a daily wrap-up of what we’ll be watching every night, cute animal videos to make you smile, the best in fail videos, weekly how-to’s on a variety of subjects, wrap-ups of the week in video, the web shows that you should be watching, and always leaving you with a daily moment of WTF.

Gawker video producer Richard Blakeley is leading the site alongside Richard Blakeley and Whitney Jefferson.

As an add on for the Gawker network it will probably do well (nothing like an epic dose of leverage to help a new site along) although at the same time the content isn’t anything we haven’t seen on thousands of similar sites before.

Gawker Media Launches Video Site Gawker.TV is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a decent than syndicating your posts deal, Mashable announced yesterday that they’ve signed a deal with CNN to link to their posts from the CNN Tech page.

In a serious bout of new speak, Mashable’s founder (and good guy) Pete Cashmore said in a post that “We’re in the middle of an exciting transition as social media and the mainstream begin to overlap in all sorts of interesting ways: this underlines our belief that social media isn’t some marketing fad, but rather a fundamental change to the way we consume and interact with content. We’ve been covering this transition for four years, from the rise of social networking to the birth of the “social media” movement as people began to use these tools of personal connection to pass content around the web.”

If I didn’t make it clear already, as much as I love Pete, that quote is pure waffle.

The deal with CNN positions Mashable to pull massively clear of their main rival TechCrunch on a page view basis, having overtaken the old Michael Arrington guard in April this year.

Mashable signs a deal with CNN is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Next Web technology blog has today launched a massive expansion of its line-up with 10 new blogs covering tech across Europe and beyond.

The Next Web launches eight international blogs in local languages for France, Russia, South Korea, The Netherlands, Argentina, Turkey, Romania and Germany. Each local blog has at least one time full editor to write about local tech stories, and the sites will also translate global stories for a local audience.

On top of the eight international blogs, The Next Web is launching two new hubs: The Next Web Europe and The Next Web Asia. Both are devoted to startups, news and internet culture in each region and will be offered in English.

The Next Web blog was a spinoff from the successful conferences on the same name and launched in January 2008. Giving a uniquely European take on tech news, the site did 600,000 uniques in September 2009. We’re also proud to note that Zee, who use to write for us occasionally here is now an editor at The Next Web, and we love reading his stuff, even if he does have an odd TC/TM fetish

The links for the new sites:

http://thenextweb.com/fr – France
http://thenextweb.com/ru – Russia
– South Korea
http://thenextweb.com/nl – The Netherlands
http://thenextweb.com/ar – Argentina
– Turkey
http://thenextweb.com/ro – Romania
– Germany

First 2 Continent Hubs

http://thenextweb.com/asia
http://thenextweb.com/europe

The Next Web Goes Supernova With 10 New Sites is a post from: The Inquisitr

ContentNext, the company behind tech and media blog PaidContent may come on the market as parent company Guardian News and Media looks to cut costs and raise money.

The unconfirmed report at Daily Finance notes that Guardian News and Media “is losing so much money — £100,000 ($162,000) per day — that it may be forced to sell assets to raise cash, industry sources say. One property that could be in play is ContentNext, the U.S.-based web publisher of PaidContent.org.”

WebMediaBrands is mentioned as a possible buyer, with CEO Alan Meckler saying “I would certainly be interested in discussing it.”

It’s hard to envisage that PaidContent is cash flow negative, so selling it off is hardly going to fix long term cash flow at the Guardian. If things are as desperate as suggested though, non-core assets are usually the first to go, and ContentNext would be the top of that list. The sale price would be anyone’s guess: the company was acquired for $30 million in July 2008, right before the global financial crisis, so the price had a premium built in that might be difficult to obtain in a fire sale today.

Report: PaidContent may come on the market as Guardian looks to raise cash is a post from: The Inquisitr

Actor Eric Dane has filled suit against Nick Denton’s Gawker Media over Gawker’s publication of the now infamous
“McSteamy” sex tape.

According to TMZ, “Dane and and [partner Rebecca] Gayheart filed the lawsuit today in L.A. County Superior Court, claiming Gawker.com had not only unlawfully posted almost 4 minutes of the private video that was shot behind closed doors, but “maliciously” distributed the video and included nude shots of the fabulous threesome — the third wheel was former beauty queen Kari Ann Peniche.”

The pair are asking for “more than $1 million in damages” and for the video to be removed from Gawker.

Nick Denton’s only response has been on Twitter, saying that “To quote the great Marty Singer — Eric Dane’s lawyer — if you don’t want a sex tape on the internet, ‘don’t make one!’”

Eric Dane sues Gawker over McSteamy sex tape is a post from: The Inquisitr

Sports blog network SB Nation has relaunched its front page as a real time sports news aggregator, and has announced a deal with the AOL owned Fanhouse sports news network.

The new front page of SB Nation highlights stories from across the extensive SB Nation blog network, and combines these with external links to other sports properties in a move that’s part meme tracker, part real-time play. CEO Jim Bankoff told PaidContent that they now calls SB Nation “national sports site” and that some of the changes add a “human touch” that helps make the content “much more valuable than a robotic aggregator.”

The deal with Fanhouse sees SBNation added a feed from Fanhouse to give it more link love, while Fanhouse is going to add SBNation stories to its mix “to add local coverage to its national spin.”

The new look and feature set is a marked step up for SB Nation from its previous role as a catch all for its blog network, and sports fans will enjoy the mix.

SB Nation relaunches front page as real time aggregator, signs Fanhouse deal is a post from: The Inquisitr

Sports blog and advertising network Yardbarker has raised $1.5 million in a round that included previous investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Baseline Ventures and Labrador Ventures.

YardBacker is the Glam Media of the sports blogging scene, running both their own blogs and aggregation tools and selling advertising across other sites. As well as having over 600 blogs in their network, Yardbarker also sells advertising for Fark.com.

The new cash injection is the third round for Yardbarker, taking the total investment in the company to just over $14 million in three rounds. PaidContent notes that Yardbarker isn’t commenting publicly on the new round.

Yardbarker was founded in March 2006 by Jack and Jeff Kloster, Pete Vlastelica and Mark Johns and is based in San Francisco.

Yardbarker sports blog network raises new round of $1.5 million is a post from: The Inquisitr

Canadian blog network b5media is selling off its business blogs, and possibly its travel blogs (see below) as part of a restructure under new CEO Elaine Kunda.

According to sources familiar with the matter, b5media is shopping the blogs privately to other blog networks and potential buyers. Private sales are primarily used to ensure a smooth transition to a new owner outside of the public eye.

No one will go on the record, and we’re also not sure exactly how b5media is structuring the sale. The b5media business blog network was rolled into the one uber-blog under the name Bizzia earlier this year, and the travel blogs reside under the Blisstree site. It would be difficult to split the blogs out and sell them individually; I’d think Bizzia would be offered as the one site, with the travel blogs either being broken out of Bliss Tree, or they’re not on the market (note I’d couldn’t confirm the travel sale with a second source, only the business sale.)

The sale doesn’t come as a huge surprise for the network given the new management. CEO Elaine Kunda’s previous role at ZipLocal saw similar cost cutting before an eventual sale, something we noted when she took the position late July.

The Bizzia/ b5media business blogs have been the least successful vertical for the company, with Bizzia.com only managing to come in at 31,000 on Alexa. Notably as of 4pm Pacific August 19, there has been very little activity on the site in recent times, suggesting that some writers may have been let go.

We’ve asked b5media for comment and will update the post if we receive it.

Update: a spokesperson for b5media responded via email saying that the story was “unsubstantiated,” which by that I can only presume means they’re not going to confirm it.

Correction: the original post mentioned August 20, when the post went up August 19; my laptop time set to US Pacific (I’m in Seattle as I write this) however Calendar still on Australian Eastern. Apologies for the confusion.

My standard disclosure: I was a founder of b5media, but have had nothing to do with the company since November 2006.

Exclusive: b5media selling off business blogs is a post from: The Inquisitr

The former Shiny Media fashion blogs Catwalk Queen, Kiss and Make Up, Bag Lady, Shoewawa, Crafty Crafty, Dollymix, Trashionista, Shiny Gloss, Star Trip and Nollie have gone to Aigua Media Limited, a fully owned subsidiary of Brightstation. The remaining blogs are now owned by Shiny Digital Ltd, a new company made up of Shiny Media’s founders.

It’s not clear from the report at Journalism.co.uk whether the original Shiny Media company will now be wound up due to it no longer having any assets, but you’d presume this would be the case.

The split of the assets is recent, with all sites still appearing to be branded as Shiny Media sites, although Aigua Media does have a page up. None of the sites we visited, including the masthead and original Shiny Shiny blog have been updated since July 16, so it’s not clear whether all titles will be revived, or even when.

The odd thing, or maybe sad thing to note about the whole Shiny Media saga is that the whole thing would appear to be nothing more than a dispute between the company and its investors. Despite having pushed the founders out and bringing in their own people, Brightstation obviously wanted more, and were willing to gut the company to get it. One thing is for sure: I don’t think there will be a lot of bloggers out there today who would go anywhere near Brightstation in the future, either as a potential investor or employer.

Shiny Media saga ends with split in assets is a post from: The Inquisitr