Gawker Media’s roll out of a new design at the beginning of February 2011 has cost the new media giant dearly, with online tracking tools showing that many of its sites have bled traffic in the past 5 weeks.

Top of the list is gadget blog Gizmodo, which according to Alexa has dropped a whopping 69.5% of page views in the month to March 10. Alexa also notes pageviews dropping by 67.1% on Gawker.com, 66.3% on Kotaku, 65.9% on Jezebel, 63.1% on Deadspin, and 61.3% on io9. Lifehacker seems to have survived the template change more lightly, dropping only 40.6% of its pageviews.

We do respect the argument that Alexa isn’t the most accurate of analytics tools, but the drops are also reflected on Quantcast, which while in our opinion significantly under counts traffic, does give an overall idea as to which direction traffic is heading. In the case of the entire Gawker Media network, via direct measure, Quantcast records a fall from around 31 million people visiting sites in February to roughly 24 million as of today, a drop of approx 23%. Impressions have dropped from roughly 440m per month to 350m per month over the same period, a drop of 20%.

Founder and CEO Nick Denton confirmed an initial drop, stating to the PaidContent conference at the beginning of March that traffic was down around 25%, but he’s confident the traffic will return.

Nearly 2 weeks later and the Gawker sites would appear to have declined even further.

Nick Denton should be congratulated for his ongoing efforts to push blog design and new media in new directions, and he has done so very successfully over the years. Based on these numbers though we think this time he may have pushed too far, and it clearly will be hurting his bottom line. Our bet is we’ll see a return to the old design, or yet another new design within the next couple of months from Gawker Media as Denton starts counting the costs of his bold gamble with the new template.

New Design Sees Gawker Media Sites Bleed Traffic is a post from: The Inquisitr

Nick Denton has finally acknowledged the backlash from Gawker’s controversial site redesign, in a lengthy post that rubbed a few commenters the wrong way and didn’t seem to deliver much word of actual improved functionality.

Denton’s tone suggests perhaps the issues weren’t so much with the site’s frankly awkward design (although there were dozens of “bug fixes,” he admits) but rather that people just aren’t seeing the vision. He begins by explaining that the site’s lack of official word on the backlash was because they were getting a bigger picture of user opinion on the site’s function:

I should first explain the radio silence of the last couple of weeks. We’d wanted to respond to feedback not with promises of future improvements but with actual fixes. So that’s what I’m doing now—but I regret any impression that we weren’t listening.

The post outlines several revisions of the new Gawker, but comments like this from Denton didn’t go over well with remaining readers, many of whom (myself included) use the Canadian Gawker site to bypass the redesign:

News web sites may indeed become more application-like and readers may grow accustomed to swiping instead of scrolling. But they’re not there yet, as the extensive criticism of the sidebar made clear.

Amusingly, the comment thread brought out some of the old-Gawker snark that has been missing in the comments since the new Gawker stumbled into being. One commenter said:

This thread is like finding a surprise packed disco in the bowels of the Marie Celeste.

In an email to staff, Denton described the new layout rollout as “more bruising” to both Gawker media staff and readers than was necessary, and describes the impact on traffic:

Obviously, the reduction in traffic from Google — as from most design changes — has been significant. It doesn’t affect readers of the site — but it does have a disproportionate effect on uniques. Search optimization of the new layout is a top priority.

What I personally find most interesting about all the redesign hand-wringing is the reader response, which seems to be very old-school message board style. The bastard child of the new layout and ensuing outcry is a snark-site called crasstalk.com, and many of the site’s top commenters have apparently fled for good in favor of it, much like what often occurs when a big message board melts down:

I haven’t been back there since about a week after the glitchy new format hit. I – and about 200 of Gawker’s best and most loyal commenters – are now over at www.crasstalk.com , where we get to not only comment but contribute to the site by writing posts on a variety of interesting subjects.

So, who’s right? Are readers just too pedestrian and behind the times to “get” the new Gawker, or was the site a tone-deaf interpretation of what Nick Denton imagines the future of blogs to be? Do you think the readers and commenters that fled are gone forever?

Denton addresses controversial Gawker makeover, details ‘bug fixes’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’m a New Yorker, and obviously, a blogger by trade. Gawker is like my New York Times.

I saw a bit of buzzing last week about Gawker and blogs dying or somesuch, but I must have tuned out, because it was a bit of a shock for me to fire up my morning tabs and discover someone had completely revised Gawker and now it is really, really weird. It’s not just Gawker- Jezebel, io9, Deadspin, Kotaku, Jalopnik, Lifehacker and Engadget have all undergone the same re-jigger to display a jarring one story per page.

It’s early to pass judgement on the makeover, as first off, it’s buggy. Kotaku and io9 both failed to load for me, displaying sidelinks, but no main content. Opening different posts in tabs failed for me as well, changing the main tab you’re clicking links off of to the link just clicked- a major pet peeve for people who read sites by opening every relevant link in a tab and then working backwards to the first tab.

At the risk of sounding like the people who get spasticated when Facebook changes their layout at all, I’m not very sure this redesign is going to catch on very well. For one thing, it makes catching up to a large backlog of posts difficult, and pages seem far slower to load. Ads at least seem to take up more space- an understandable change, if that observation is correct, but I found the placement to interrupt my reading of the content. Even now, as I flip back to the Gawker tab I have open, the sidebar still hasn’t loaded and is spinning despite the several minutes the tab has “working.” (See image above.)

Nick Denton seems to disagree with me, saying of the new design:

“It just feels inevitable,” Denton says. “We have a crying need to showcase both exclusives and visual posts. The visual posts are now at least half of our top-performing stories. And audience growth on sites like Deadspin and Gawker has been driven by our most sensational scoops.”

Ex-Gawker editor Gabriel Snyder didn’t concur, however- even willing to wager against Denton that the redesign was ill-conceived:

“I’m on the record that I think the redesigns will fail. And I’m now officially opening the betting pool. I think Denton is going to be forced to pull back on this. If anyone wants to wager that the redesign don’t get yanked back (or greatly modified) by, let’s say, June 1… I’ll take your bet.”

Do you think the redesign will win over Gawker blogs readers? Do blog readers want more of a magazine format? Skimming Gawker, it kind of reminds me of what I ‘don’t’ miss about magazines- difficulty finding and sorting content, having to skim away from large images in which I have no interest (rather than clicking to enlarge interesting pics), and a more time-consuming overall user experience. What are your thoughts?

Are you digging on the Gawker Media extreme makeover? is a post from: The Inquisitr

It seems Gawker writers may have poked the hornet’s nest a few too many times this year, as a group of shadowy internet pranksters have cracked the fuck out of all of Gawker Media’s web properties to retaliate for the snarky blog’s “arrogance.”

Do you use a “life password” and comment on the Gawker site? It seems many Gawker slash Twitter users may have, resulting in a flood of spam posts about Acai berries so prolific, it was originally thought to be a worm that was “spreading like wildfire.” The group taking responsibility for the hack hasn’t officially said any of Gawker’s 4chan baiting posts were the catalyst, but Gawker hasn’t been shy with the number of insults levied at the notorious imageboard.

So what do you need to know about the massive Gawker hack?

Signs of a breach were there, but no one noticed it for what it was and Gawker peeps wrote it off right away. Says TNW:

Back in November, (Nick) Denton was told by a co-worker that he was spotted logged in to the Campfire backend, this was not him. Instead of safeguarding his credentials, Denton is convinced by other staff members that it was his own fault and doesn’t change his passwords, something he may later regret.

Gawker says Twitter accounts weren’t compromised, but the influx of cross-user spam suggests otherwise. Whether you used the same password or something else was afoot, check your Twitter account for unauthorized tweets, and consider changing your password just in case.

This is probably like the herpes of database breaches. Information that’s been made available reveals a still-shockingly weak number of passwords used for the site, thousands of which were the word “password.” While your Gawker commenting account getting hacked isn’t the be all and end all of internet embarrassments, many of the users affected by the breach probably use the same password/email combo across the web.

This particular hack will probably keep on giving long after it’s no longer newsworthy. Furthermore, many of the hacked and posted accounts were linked to federal work email addresses, NASA, large banks and other massive entities where we can only hope those using them practice a modicum of password diversification.

Well, I’m sick of this bullshit, how can I delete my Gawker commenter account? Not currently an option, so if you’re among those who have been affected by the breach, tough titties, sayeth Gawker.

Also, Gawker writers thought the idea of 4chan or a similar entity coming after them was pretty funny. Gnosis, the group who say they carried out the attack, released a chat log among Gawker writers where they expressed a desire for 4chan to “bring it on.” It would appear, in fact, it has already been brought:

rian M

The headeline of your post should be “Suck on This, 4Chan”

Maureen O.
I like the call to make today Everybody Write About 4chan Day

Hamilton N.
Nick Denton Says Bring It On 4Chan, Right to My Home Address (After The Jump)

Ryan T.
We Are Not Scared of 4chan Here at 210 Elizabeth St NY NY 10012

Richard L.
don’t forget Fourth Floor

Ryan T.
Right! And Brian’s headcut illustration

Ryan T.
As the lead image

Brian M.
Oh, 4Chan does not want to mess with me once I wind my neck up at them

Brian M.
#giirrrrrrlllllllll

Maureen O.
hey guess what, 4chan has already declared gawker the winner of the 4chan war! we won!

Richard L.
VICTORY

Richard L.
what’d they say?

Jim N.
USA! USA!

Richard L.
MR. OBAMA, TEAR DOWN THAT MOSQUE!

Maureen O.
they say that this day will go down in history as the day 4chan failed.

Richard L.
that’s terrific.

Also? Hamilton Nolan and Richard Lawson called commenters “peasants” as news of the breach began spreading yesterday. Pic above, but the attitude displayed in the chat (“oh, well. unimportant.”) has not garnered Gawker any sympathy since the incident became public knowledge.

One last thing? Fleshbot was part of the data dump, so that should be interesting.

Gawker Media hack about as bad as it could possibly be is a post from: The Inquisitr

Gawker Media has settled its copyright dispute with HarperCollins after the New York based gossip blog posted excerpts from Sarah Palin’s autobiography.

The case headed to court last week when HarperCollins called breach of copyright over the published excerpts of “America By Heat,” a claim supported by a Manhattan judge who ordered Gawker to pull the pages pending a November 30 hearing.

HarperCollins said in a statement that the publisher is “gratified” by the settlement and that Gawker “has agreed to keep the posted material off its web site and not to post the material again in the future.” The company also said that it welcomes “public commentary on its books so long as any book content is utilized in a manner that is consistent with the law.”

Gawker responded stating that “HarperCollins’ decision to file suit against us and seek a temporary restraining order generated a good deal of press for Ms. Palin’s book in advance of publication. Now that the book is out and destined to appear on the bestseller list, we’re pleased that HarperCollins proposed settling this case, as is, to avoid lengthy litigation.”

Gawker Settles Lawsuit with HarperCollins is a post from: The Inquisitr

Blog network Gawker Media is set to abandon the traditional blog formatting in favor of a new magazine style layout for its network of nine sites.

The overhaul, the largest for Gawker Media since launching with Gizmodo in 2002, will see the network abandon reverse chronological order posts, shorten headlines, and further embrace video content.

“I’m out of blogs,” founder and CEO Nick Denton tells The Wall Street Journal. “I don’t want to be the No. 1 blog network anymore. That’s like being king of the playground.”

The change for Gawker Media has been a long time coming, with most large new media sites having embraced magazine style layouts extensively for the last two to three years. It’s actually surprising in 2010 to see a network the size of Gawker maintaining such an old school layout.

The new designs will start rolling out across the Gawker Media network in January 2011.

Gawker Media To Abandon Blog Format For New Magazine Look is a post from: The Inquisitr

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

Gawker became the kind of media news it tends to report on today, with the announcement of the acquisition of CityFile and subsequent replacement of Editor in Chief Gabriel Snyder.

Explained in two memos, posted below, the ouster seems to have come as a surprise to Snyder, who has been with Gawker Media for eighteen months. While the reaction he expressed was public and thusly tamed, is new media really doomed to partnerships as short as Snyder seems to think? He took a quick working conditions snipe at the position (eighteen hour days, seven day weeks), but is pounding the pavement (literal or virtual) every two years or so the new career standard? The resignation (emotionally, not the career kind) in Snyder’s recounting was kind of sad. It doesn’t seem Gawker suffered under his direction, and anyone who’s been strategically let go will probably bristle at this bit in Denton’s memo on the decision:

We had hoped to persuade Gabriel Snyder to stay in a management role. But he’s moving on. With help from an awesomely strong team of writers and the new Gawker.tv operation, Gabriel doubled Gawker’s audience during his tenure (http://bit.ly/c6BXk8.) To anyone out there looking to build up an online property: snap him up quickly.

Which we all know likely means “we cut his pay to just enough to cover coffee and a metrocard, rescinded all responsibilities and returning would be humiliating.” Snyder is staying on editing the site until Friday, at which time the position will be taken over by Remy Stern. The acquisition is the first for Gawker Media, although Denton denies Gawker is going on an “acquisition spree.”

So, yeah. Snyder’s goodbye to colleagues (published in a post starting out with “okay, this is weird.” Aw, sad…) and then Denton’s full memo, below:

From: Gabriel Snyder
Date: February 15, 2010 3:47:23 PM EST
Subject: Farewell

For reasons which I’m not too clear on, but I’m sure Nick Denton will explain momentarily, I am being replaced as editor-in-chief of Gawker.

Honesty is Gawker’s only virtue, so it seems inappropriate to engage in the usual corporate euphemisms of “wanting to explore new new opportunities” or “take a larger role in the company” or “spend more time with my family” (though eighteen-hour days and seven-day work weeks do take their toll on personal relationships), so I’ll put this as plainly as we’d report any other masthead ouster: I am being canned.

Building this website into what it is today — a big operation with 11 writers, a regular source of national news and a challenger to the mainstream media organizations that it once mocked — has been the best job of my career. Transitioning from print to online meant adopting an entirley new biorhythm. Transitioning from writer to editor has meant learning to bask in the reflected glory of the talented staff who contribute every day. I love Gawker and adore the crew that makes it happen.

You deserve all the credit; my role has been to push you to be yourselves: Alex Pareene’s incisive political commentary, John Cook’s dogged reporting and clear-headed analysis, Brian Moylan’s ability to enunciate conversation-starting ideas, Richard Lawson’s ability to produce dazzling copy at superhuman speeds, Ryan Tate’s cliche-free coverage of Silicon Valley, Hamilton Nolan’s workhorse ethic and humor, Doree Shafrir’s gimlet-eyed appraisals of the culture and society around her. Waking up each morning to the work of Adrian Chen, Maureen O’Connor and Ravi Somaiya is a pleasure. Watching Foster Kamer dance on the stage each weekend is a joy. You, without a doubt, make up the strongest staff Gawker’s ever had, and make the site the best it’s ever been.

Eighteen months ago, when I first sat down with Nick to discuss taking over the Gawker helm from him, I saw a huge opportunity to build a site from its roots as an intimate discussion among Manhattan’s power elite and build it into a national news brand (an aspiration that seems to come up every time there’s a masthead shakeup around here). Attaining those goals have been the biggest accomplishment of my career. As I saw it, Facebook, Twitter and smaller blogs had slowly encroached on the role Gawker once served. Among the most difficult, though most rewarding to the site, efforts was to take the site from a bankers’ hours schedule to publishing 24 hours around the clock, weekends included. I believed the site could be grown beyond its traditional audience by focusing on news from the nation’s four cultural capitals (New York, D.C., L.A. and San Francisco) — which became even more clear when I was given the task of integrating former standalone sites Defamer and Valleywag into the flagship. Oh, and then there have been the stories. It’s become common to see national newspapers and broadcasts cite Gawker on vast array of stories: the U.S. Kabul embassy security dudes behaving badly, the Hipster Grifter saga, leading the entire media for a weekend on the Balloon Boy fiasco, those pictures of Katie Couric dancing, pillorying Harold Ford through simple questions, Annie Leibovitz’s financial meltdown, the Late Night Wars, Facebook privacy, Anna Wintour … more than I can count. I was determined to compete with the biggest news sites on the internet. And today, I am glad to say it does.

But the history of Gawker Media careers shows that they tend to burn bright and fast. So it shouldn’t have come as a much of a surprise when our mercurial owner told me he’s hatched other plans for Gawker. He offered me a new, temporary position as an assistant managing editor of Gawker Media as a holding job, which I have declined. I can’t see how I’d be in a position to succeed at the role going into it with one foot literally out the door. I’ll be editing the site until Friday. After that, please stay in touch (gs@gabrielsnyder.com). And needless to say, as of now I am on the market and will be beating the media bushes for my next opportunity.

I will miss you all.

Best,
Gabriel

Denton’s memo:

From: Nick Denton
Date: February 15, 2010 3:48:03 PM EST
Subject: Gawker Media acquiring Cityfile

For the first few years of Gawker Media, the business press had one abiding preoccupation: when are you going to sell out? Today we’re giving the M&A gossips something else to talk about. The company is making its first acquisition: Cityfile, the New York news site founded by Remy Stern. The price is not being disclosed.

Cityfile will be the New York and media industry channel on Gawker, alongside Valleywag and Defamer, our tech and entertainment sub-sites. Cityfile’s 2,000-plus profiles of New York notables will be the centerpiece of our new topic and people pages. And Remy Stern, a former writer on several Gawker sites and editor at the now-legendary Radar magazine, will take over as editor-in-chief of Gawker. He starts on February 22nd.

We had hoped to persuade Gabriel Snyder to stay in a management role. But he’s moving on. With help from an awesomely strong team of writers and the new Gawker.tv operation, Gabriel doubled Gawker’s audience during his tenure (http://bit.ly/c6BXk8.) To anyone out there looking to build up an online property: snap him up quickly.

Does this mean Gawker is going on an acquisition spree?

Well, it’s a question of scale. Each of the Gawker titles does already have more than 1m US visitors a month — making them usually the largest or second largest blog title in their category. Nevertheless the threshold of advertising success does continue to rise and we’re increasingly competing online with TV and newspaper groups.
Moreover, we’ve long actively managed our portfolio of properties, selling Consumerist to Consumers Union last year, for instance — or closing down unsuccessful properties. To achieve critical mass in entertainment and tech, we have indeed looked at a few opportunities in the last few months. If online media is consolidating, we’d rather be a consolidator than consolidatee. And revenue growth of 22% in 2009 provides the resources. (Deal ideas? Contact Gaby Darbyshire.)

Don’t get too excited, however. The successful launches of Jezebel and io9 confirmed our belief that it’s usually more effective to build than buy. Lifted by the iPad launch and the late-night TV wars, our nine sites — all launched inhouse — drew a US audience of more than 14m in January. Our best editorial investment continues to be the recruitment of great writers and producers on our own sites — and the pursuit of hot stories.

Nick

Gawker makes first acquisition, ousts EIC is a post from: The Inquisitr

If hundreds of millions of pages views aren’t enough to demonstrate that Nick Denton is one of the smartest guys in blogging, his latest trick might finally convince the doubters.

Roughly 24 hours ago (at the time of writing,) Gawker offered $100,000 to anyone that could give them access to the Apple tablet for one hour. There were also smaller payments: $10,000 for pictures, $20,000 for video, and $50,000 for pictures or video of Steve Jobs holding one.

I don’t doubt for one minute that Denton would have paid out should someone have come forward, but likewise this was also a calculated bluff of pure genius, because if the tablet did exist, Apple would likely do its usual thing and send in the lawyers on the grounds of commercial confidence. If it didn’t exist, Apple would have nothing to hide, so couldn’t claim commercial confidence.

And Apple did exactly that. According to a post on Gawker,

Michael Spillner of the prestigious Menlo Park law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe! Your “Letter from Apple” demanding that we stop the Scavenger Hunt — specifically the line “Apple has maintained the types of information and things you are soliciting … in strict confidence” — is the most concrete evidence (from Apple itself, no less!) yet that there may indeed be a tablet in the works.

Pure genius from Denton, and now we turn to speculating exactly when the very real Apple tablet may be launched.

Nick Denton Is A Genius, Gets Apple To Confirm Tablet Is Coming is a post from: The Inquisitr

Anyone who follows Apple product launches will know that the company is extremely guarded about their products and apparently Gawker Media crossed the line this week when they offered $100,000 to the first person who could provide any pictures or videos of the Apple Tablet.

Apple served the company with a cease and desist order which in its basic terms said that asking to knowingly receive trade secrets and then divulging them is against a bunch of California laws, especially when money is paid for those secrets.

The response from Gawker?

Oh well, you have to do what you have to do: The offer still stands.

Just don’t do anything illegal to get any of the evidence, and use an anonymous mail when sending your pics or video to Gabriel at Gawker. [Gawker]

Gotta love Nick Denton and his “screw it attitude” for his company, this one could get messy if the device actually ends up in Gawkers hands.

Apple Threatens To Sue Gawker Media Over Apple Tablet Rumor Contest 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

A new media campaign retaliating against ESPN for scandal related subterfuge got some old media attention today.

Deadspin, a Gawker media blog, gets oodles of sports and sportscaster news related tips and rumors in their inbox. Back at the beginning of September, Deadspin’s editor AJ Daulerio contacted ESPN for confirmation of the rumors swirling around Steve Philips regarding the unhinged intern (Brooke Hundley) that Philips totally turned out to be tapping. ESPN spokespeople were less than forthcoming about the brewing scandal, and Daulerio got scooped and got mad- so he decided to devote a day to posting all the tips he’d gotten regarding sexual impropriety at ESPN.

Daulerio tagged the entries “ESPN horndog dossier,” and posted rumors about Erik Kuselias, Stephania Bell, Jed Drake, Katie Lacey and David Berson. There was even a “glossary“ posted that gave a bit of background info on some alleged less savory seduction practices common at ESPN. The intended effect was swift and painful for ESPN- the names named by Deadspin showed up in the top results of Google searches frequently late last week and even prompted ESPN President George Bodenheimer to issue a memo asking staff to quit blabbing about the constant in-house boning to media.

The New York Times kind of chided the Deadspin for their “ESPN horndog dossier” today, and ESPN only commented in a statement, saying:

“Deadspin’s self-admitted rumormongering is despicable behavior by any standard and shows callous disregard for its impact on people’s lives. It is not worthy of response and those responsible should be called to account.”

Although the Times piece seems to imply that the posts were all rumor and supposition posted purely out of spite, quotes at the end not only lend credence to Daulerio’s sources, but also the reasoning behind the decision to go after ESPN in the first place:

But in the interview (with the New York Times), (Daulerio) said he adhered to the same standard of proof as any traditional news organization, repeating only those things told to him by multiple sources with close knowledge of the subject.

He and Nick Denton, owner of Gawker Media, said the larger issue was sources being dishonest with journalists. “When an unnamed source misleads, as far as we’re concerned, they lose the right to remain in the shadows,” Mr. Denton said in an e-mail exchange.

Daulerio also contends that none of the tips posted were kept under wraps very well anyway:

“Do I bend the rules a little bit? Of course I do. We’re still a blog at the end of the day, a Gawker Media blog. The larger truth out of this, outside of my temper tantrum over getting scooped out of a story, is that this is the worst-kept secret in sports media.”

What do you think? Questionable judgment, or epic win?

NYT subtly frowns on Deadspin’s ESPN horndog dossier shenanigans 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

“Server issues” is being bandied about as a cause- Consumerist, a blog that was sold by Gawker Media in 2008, indicated as such at around 11:30am EST and since that post the blog has been unusually quiet all day. Gawker also addressed the issue at 2:47pm with a brief post entitled “If You Can Read This Post, You’re One of the Lucky Few.”

It always seems pretty pointless to put up a post on a website to say that that site’s down. But to state the obvious: all Gawker Media sites are having really bad server problems today. It’s not just you.

In addition to Gizmodo, Gawker, i0, Jezebel, and Consumerist; Defamer, Deadspin, Jalopnik, Fleshbot, and Kotaku are also having connectivity issues. Whatever the cause may be, here’s to hoping it gets fixed soon. In the absence of many of my favorite blogs I’ve cleaned a few things and returned some long-waiting e-mails and bring back my celebrity gossip, damnit! It feels like one of those summer days where everyone else ran off to the beach and you’re the only one in the office. Bummer.

Gizmodo, Gawker, i0, Jezebel, Consumerist up and down all day is a post from: The Inquisitr

Gawker Media has always been an interesting sales proposition in terms of breadth. While there are solid, safe titles like Lifehacker and Gizmodo, there’s the gossip sites and even the lite porn site Fleshbot. So how do you sell that?

We’ll if you’re Uncle Nick (Denton), you embrace your seedier side, and flaunt it in a video that concludes that Gawker’s model is the future.

All I have to say on this video is balls. Or to be more precise, what Denton has.

How Gawker Media sells itself is a post from: The Inquisitr

Valleywag Editor Owen Thomas is leaving the Gawker Media empire for greener pastures at NBC, according naturally to Valleywag.

Thomas joined Valleywag in 2007 from Business 2.0, and oversaw the demise of the site from a multi-person dedicated Silicon Valley gossip blog, to a column on Gawker.com that mostly covered Twitter posts and Julia Allison. Taking over from Thomas is Ryan Tate, who was previously Gawker’s night editor. Tate is reasonably well connected to the Valley, having studied at UC Berkeley where among other things he ran a campus newspaper.

The only surprise in Thomas’ move to NBC is that he didn’t move to TechCrunch, where his mix of tech gossip and Twitter would have been a perfect fit.

(image: Laughing Squid)

Owen Thomas leaves Valleywag for NBC is a post from: The Inquisitr

Gawker Media’s Nick Denton has shut Defamer as a standalone site.

Defamer wasn’t named when Denton started making cuts to the network in November (we speculated it might be cut), but was said to be close to a sale late December when Consumerist changed hands.

Denton said in a statement that Defamer would become the entertainment column of Gawker, in the same way that Valleywag is now part of the site:

Gawker now draws more than 3m visitors a month — four times the audience it had in 2007. More than three-quarters of Gawker’s readership is from outside New York. The inclusion of Defamer’s Hollywood gossip — following an expansion of political coverage last year and the incorporation of Valleywag — reflects Gawker’s evolution into a national gossip site.

All three writers from the site are out of work, with Gawker staff taking over the writing duties, although Denton is looking to hire a gossip writer for the column.

Launched four years ago, Defamer delivers respectable traffic of 1.1m visitors a month for 5.9 million page views per Quantcast direct measure.

We don’t know yet how the announcement will affect Defamer Australia, the licensed Australia edition that like the other Gawker titles held by Allure Media, relies heavily on content from the original American sites.

Another consolidation as the wide blogging model slowly dies.

Denton shuts Defamer as stand alone site, now part of Gawker is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Consumers Union, the US based independent, nonprofit testing and information service for consumers has acquired Gawker Media blog The Consumerist.

The Consumerist, a blog dedicated to exposing consumer scams and bad company practices went up for sale in November, as part of broadsweeping cuts Gawker Media’s Nick Denton announced in front of his prediction of a 40% decline in online advertising in 2009. Rumors in early December had the site being sold to The Deal.

The deal is a win for Consumerist readers, with the editorial team remaining in place, and a new owner that respects the job the team does, one that doesn’t win many friends in the corporate world. The only change will be in advertising, the site will now exclusively advertise products from The Consumers Union. The NY Times notes that Consumers Union is seeking to attract younger readers with the buy, with the hope of eventually selling them online or print subscriptions to Consumer Reports.

The Times also reports that Defamer is close to being to being sold.

Consumers Union Acquires The Consumerist is a post from: The Inquisitr

For most of this year, possibly longer, The Huffington Post has been syndicating articles on their site with links back to the original source. The general idea is to take 2-3 paragraphs from the original source, then link out at the end so that readers can continue reading the article on the original site.

I’ve always found the model interesting, but I also presumed that it was done with permission; we now run a small about of content here at The Inquisitr on the similar basis, although always with permission from authors upfront.

It turns out that The Huffington Post not only didn’t have permission, but at times were republishing full posts, not just extracts.

Chicagoland made the initial call out on content being stolen, then followed up with a pile of extra examples. Ryan Tate at Gawker calls the practice grubby.

Wired got comment from The Huffington Post, saying the examples of full content being used were an error, and that the syndication posts help promote sites and deliver traffic to the source. They also noted that the headlines also link to the source, at that 95% of the time readers never hit the extract page, instead going straight to the source.

It’s a double dose of copyright gray not well considered.

Running 2-3 paragraphs of a longer post with a link back may constitute fair use, but not adding to the content and running it whole (even if only part of the post) starts to get fishy on the fair use part, when considering that fair use in this context would normally be considered when quoting in the context of unique content.

I’m not about to widely condemn The Huffington Post for the practice, poorly played out as might have been the case, but it does very much surprise me that they didn’t attempt to obtain permission up front for printing the extracts; likewise I’m sure that it wouldn’t be hard for them to find willing partners who would welcome their content on The Huffington Post in this way, given the staggering amounts of traffic the site pumps through, where even a small cut of links could instantly deliver tens of thousands of page views each time a site gets linked to.

For others it is a lesson learned: when in doubt, ask for permission. We did.

Huffington Post’s Syndication tricks come back to bite them is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Jossip Blog Network has closed two long established blogs: Mollygood and Stereohyped.

Network owner David Hauslaib said in a note to staff that the sites were shutting due to the broader economic climate going in to 2009.

I can give you some bullshit speak to feed your “art of a layoff memo” meme (which I quite enjoyed), but basically, we looked at what 2009 is going to be like, and it isn’t pretty. Your own boss will tell you online media isn’t immune to the ad downturn. We’ve been very successful with all four sites — in terms of both economics and readership levels — and much consideration went into the decision, both personally and fiscally, but it’s a call that’s in the best interest of the company to move forward. It’s just shitty that the decision means we say goodbye to very creative and talented people. That said, we’ve got a few significant new things we’re working on with Jossip and Queerty, which, though Gawker might like to argue, are category leaders.

Jossip maints its original Jossip.com and the GLBT focused Queerty.

(via Gawker)

Jossip Network shutters Mollygood, Stereohyped is a post from: The Inquisitr