The Inquisitr » gawker

Gawker Media Launches Video Site Gawker.TV

Duncan Riley — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:20:10 +0000

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.

Eric Dane sues Gawker over McSteamy sex tape

Duncan Riley — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:27:51 +0000

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!’”

Whoops- did the newspaper print Jennifer Aniston’s hoo-ha?

Kim LaCapria — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:54:52 +0000

Gawker has an interesting post this morning proving that newspapers may have not quite lost their relevance yet.

One of the site’s bloggers pointed out a picture in today’s paper that appears to show the ex-Mrs. Pitt’s cash and prizes. In the snap, Aniston is on set, being shoved into a trunk by rumored beau Gerard Butler. The shot shows Jennifer, legs in the air, and apparently not wearing any panties.

Gawker describes the possible oopsie:

What is no laughing matter is, if you look really close, it looks like, well, Jen is smiling at the camera…and her face isn’t visible. Like a color commentator for the celebrity set, we have circled and blown up the offending area. While we’re no experts in these matters (we were initially distracted from her womanhood by Butler’s ass in the bent over position) it looks like we’re getting the whole kit and caboodle. This has got to be the first time we’ve gotten into an actress’ personal space getting into a car rather than out of one.

So can you really see Jennifer Aniston’s vagina? It’s definitely… ambiguous. Click through for a larger, unobscured version of the picture. It kind of reminds you that while a cease and desist letter can get a pic pulled within minutes, try getting an embarassing snap unseen by the whole of New York City.

No related posts.

Gawker dusts itself off after DDoS attack

Paul Short — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:13:12 +0000

For much of last night and earlier today, most of Gawker Media’s properties were experiencing intermittent downtime, which is highly unusual for them.

All properties seem to be back up and running at their peak as I write this, so all is well again, but what caused the downtime in the first place? A property that Gawker sold last year was hacked.

The high profile consumer watchdog blog, Consumerist, purchased by the Consumers Union in 2008, was hacked and since it is apparently still hosted on the same servers as current Gawker sites, the hackage damage cascaded across other Gawker properties as well.

From Gawker:

Well here’s your last (Hopefully!) technical difficulties update: According to a memo sent out tonight by our IT team, the recent Gawker Media server problems were the result of a DDOS attack against Consumerist.

Quick thought – It may be time for Gawker to cut the umbilical cord with Consumerist, on the tech end of things at least.

Gizmodo, Gawker, i0, Jezebel, Consumerist up and down all day

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:11:33 +0000

Gawker media blogs and Consumerist have been experiencing intermittent outages today.

“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.

Report: Gawker’s “Consumerist” Closing In On Sale

JR — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:39:11 +0000

Gawker Media’s The Consumerist site is close to finalizing a sale, according to a recently published report.

The Consumerist, which was put on the auction block as part of Gawker’s overall cuts last month, is currently in “preliminary negotiations,” site editor Ben Popken told NetworkWorld.

NetworkWorld first noticed a tweet from Popken stating: “The deal closes in…” Upon further inquiry, he reports the following dialogue with Popken:

NWW: “Just saw your tweet. By ‘the deal’ do you mean ‘The Deal?’ Have you been sold? Are you close to being sold? Hope you find a nice home.”

BP: “Yep, The Deal. Preliminary negotiations, but things look good. The prospect is a good name everyone will be happy with.”

The Consumerist is averaging just under 300,000 page views a day, according to Sitemeter.

Gawker-owned Valleywag also got slashed in the same set of consolidations. It, however, is hanging onto its name and becoming a single column within Gawker.com.

Gawker Media

Gawker Media ad revenue up 39%, so Denton fires more people

Duncan Riley — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:39:01 +0000

Among the doom and gloom of the economic crisis and recession there’s been no stronger advocate of a worst case scenario outcome for new media than Nick Denton. Over several essays, Denton has argued that online advertising will drop 40% in the coming year, and he’s made broad cuts at Gawker Media, including staff and titles to better place the company to deal with it. So you’d think if things were so bad that Denton’s revenue would be decreasing in line with his prediction… but you’d be wrong.

Gawker Media revenue increased 39% in November.

But just for good measure, Denton took the opportunity to undertake a new round of layoffs. According to Media Bistro:

Gawker editor Sheila McClear and Jezebel editorial assistant Maria-Mercedes Lara have been let go, Gawker weekend editor Alex Carnevale’s month-to-month contract was not re-upped*, and three other editors at Jezebel are being made into part-time employees. At Gizmodo, Gawker Media’s top traffic-getter, reporter Benny Goldman was laid off.

Former Valleywag scribe Nicholas Carlson has more details of the revenue breakdown on Silicon Alley Insider.

Gawker Issues Independence Day Paycuts

JR — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:56:58 +0000

Web publisher Gawker Media is cutting its writers’ rates for the second time this year, according to a report by Radar Online.

The company — responsible for such blog giants as Valleywag, Lifehacker, and Gizmodo — has dropped its Gawker.com per-pageview rate down to $5 per 1,000 views, Radar says. The rate was $7.50 at the start of the year, then fell to $6.50 in the second quarter, leading up to this week’s adjustment.

Radar indicates owner Nick Denton sent the staff a memo saying they’d “broken the site budget” — a phrase now referenced on Gawker’s front page (see below). The e-mail, the story says, goes on to note each writer will need to bring in “higher targets” and explains some calculations had suggested the rate should have gone as low as $4.15, so it’s “not as bad as it could have been.”

Gawker dropped three sites from its arsenal back in April: Wonkette, Gridskipper, and Idolator.

Gawker Media