mymarkup.net

Gawker Media och Nick Denton presenterat i dagens New York Times (för 100:e gången känns det som) - "A Blog Revolution? Get a Grip" - och som vanligt tonar han ner möjligheterna att tjäna pengar på bloggar, men samtidigt verkar hans lilla "imperium" dra in lite pengar:

'The hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe," he said. 'They want to believe there's going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed.'

och...'If you take the amount of attention that has been devoted in the last year to Web logs as a business and something that's going to change business and compare that with the real effect and the real money, it's totally disproportionate,' Mr. Denton said, 'in the same way all the coverage of the Internet in the late 90's was out of whack.'

Om annonser: The editors are expected to write a "thank-you to our sponsors" at the end of each week, although this is typically done sarcastically - for example, thanking advertisers for keeping the staff well-stocked in crack cocaine.

...och om att skilja på reklam och innehåll: 'It goes beyond any kind of question of church and state or journalistic ethics that the whole editorial tone of the Gawker sites is absolutely wrapped up in the notion of take no prisoners,' Mr. Denton said. 'It owes nothing to anybody, and if one ever started compromising that, it would be grim.'

Som redaktör för en Gawker-blogg (Gawker (NY-kändisskvaller), Wonkette (DC-politikskvaller), Fleshbot (porr), Kotaku (spel), Sploid (tabloidnyheter), Lifehacker (programvara), Defamer (LA-kändisskvaller), Gizmodo (prylar), Screenhead ("funny shit"), Jalopnik och Gridskipper (resor)) måste man posta 12 gånger om dagen för lönen (It is best to have eight posts up before noon, if possible, to keep readers coming back, [Denton] said) och sedan får man bonus för "traffic spikes" (tänk Paris Hiltons hackade telefon eller Fred Dursts peterniklas) - Site traffic is a particular obsession. [...] Ms. Trapani's [of Lifehacker] hour-by-hour traffic statistics serve as the desktop image on her computer.

Stowe Boyd från Corante är dock kritisk: 'These people are hirelings,' he said. 'What they are cranking out are the 700 words they signed on to produce.'

17 bloggar är planerade (12 nu), lika många titlar som Condé Nast har, och så planerar dom att sparka liv i Kinja igen.

Relaterat:
» Trevor Cook - "Up Against Reality: Blogging and the cost of content", papper från kommande konferens i Australien - "Blogtalk Downunder".