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19.5.04

In Search For the Revenue Stream 

Nick pointed us to Greg Lindsay's blog fantasy. So there we have another blog hyping business journalist or rather gossip columnist in search for the revenue stream, which makes him tick rather than the object of investigation.
  • "Any way you look at it, you have to conclude that Denton is wily"

  • "It's so dumb, it works: Denton's blog model is leaner than a George Foreman turkey burger."

  • The trick is: "By offering fame rather than fortune, he's persuaded talented writers to work for him for less money than they'd make pulling cappuccinos at Starbucks (SBUX). And he picks subjects for his blogs that are irresistible to the chattering classes -- media, power, sex, and toys. In the end, it costs Denton a few thousand bucks per month for each site, in return for a monthly audience of about 1.6 million young, media-savvy readers. Several Internet user studies recently concluded that the total blogger audience is only 13 million to 14 million readers. Denton is skimming off the demographic cream -- the influential chatterati."

  • Which leads us to the final goal of the Denton business phiosophy - according to Greg L. - which allegedly was also the point behind his former ventures: "For now, running a blog business is a blast for Denton; Gawker gets him into parties where he rubs shoulders with New York's media elite. But once the thrill of invention is gone? After the crowds rush the door? Denton's got an uncanny knack for knowing when a scene is over -- and for finding someone willing to pay face value for his entrance ticket."

  • Rafat Ali thinks "Greg's got Nick's anti-hype hype spot on."

    So it's all about the personal fortune. Which is on the other hand also one of Nick's points in response to the Business 2.0 article.
  • "Greg Lindsay, and editors such as Josh Quittner of Business 2.0, wrote about the 1990s internet boom. They saw acquaintances get rich, and they missed the opportunity."

  • second: why the attention for blogs? "The media is simply narcissistic. That's part of the answer. [...] Greg Lindsay's personal preoccupation with Gawker seems to stem from the fact that we used to write about him and, since he "went freelance", no longer do. Media about media about media."

  • That's it, that's the point: "This journalistic fascination with blogs: it's not analysis; it's wish-fulfilment." (The Jarvis Jeff might disagree with that, though.)

    Still, there are of course some interesting points. Greg thinks he knows about the personal relationships between Nick and a couple of his former editors (La Spiers, Pete). Some interesting biographical facts, e.g. that Nick went home to care for his ailing mother, etc.

    And at last - Greg's fascination aside - despite the different business models of Jason McCabe and Nick, they "were playing a game of chicken, each desperate to avoid the stigma of having touched off more hype and encouraged speculators to enter the nascent market."

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