the IT blog

Great story in the latest Wired issue on Nick and his microcontent media empire. That's why they call him "a molecular version of the Rupe"!!

still don't work!

this new blogger setup won't republish my archives! hell!

Watch your kitchen:
HO CHI MINH worked in London pub

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."

If you haven't seen it yet, we've just come across Mister Bluejake's latest entrepreneurial adventure. He seeks to establish a Gothamist for Chicago - the Chicagoist (still Beta). We certainly think it's a good a idea to proceed with the familiar layout, BUT can't we have anything other than CHICAGO-IST. The -IST is fine but please try to find a synonym for the pre -IST part of the word! TA!

Don't forget to check out the Krucoff vs. Steele: blog on blog violence [via Uncle Grambo]

There's always someone to help you out. - It's beloved Jason McCabe. He misses La Spiers: "Spiers retiring from blogging makes me feel like the times when Jordan retired from the NBA. :-( Hey kid, can you just give us a couple of riffs on Graydon for old time's sake?!" I mean who wouldn't agree with that.

BUT then he had to spoil it all: "PS - The door is always open if you ever want to get back on the court. Same deal, you own half the brand and I'll make sure you can pay the rent." It didn't happen when that squawking about Gawker, but hope ends last, innit Jason?

We've been blacked out. - totally. But as I can see there wasn't much buzz in the blogosphere anyway. Still, we have to get used to that new blogger.com layout.

The result of the NY Bloggers panel with Nick and Jason McCabe is fixed at last. The scoreboard says Denton 1 : Calacanis NIL. The match winner was when Nick discovered that Jason "is his own worst enemy, far more lethal than I could ever be," and quoting Jason saying:

When journalists believe that they should be millionaires and billionaires like the companies they cover, their careers are over. And that's what's happening... And I'm afraid that I'll lose my edge, I'm afraid that I'll get soft. I really enjoy being a journalist, and I don't want to muddy that with this expectation that I should be worth millions of dollars.

STRIKE!

The NY Bloggers event went down well. Bluejake has photos and links, Gothamist thanks everyone, and Jason McCabe has a big recap defending himself why he didn't bite off Nick's head:

I don't know what's wrong with me, I used to be so much more aggressive. I found myself feeling a strange kinship with Nick and not wanting to give him too much of a hard time. If did want to give him a hard time I should have asked him about how often his people leave, or why he makes his writers give "props" to their advertisers every week and then gets all high and mighty about advertising/editorial integrity (I would never have my writers give props to the advertisers).

The Denton launches his latest online adventure: The Defamer. It's the Gawker for Hell-A. And the welcome message makes the not-yet-household names shiver as they might fear the limelight:

"... We think the gossip in Hollywood has focussed a bit too much on the glamour, and not enough on the important stuff -- namely, the cold hard cash. (And, even better, the promise of cash that never materializes.) The real stars of Hollywood, after all, aren't even household names... yet. We hope that L.A., the greatest, cruelest city in the world, is finally getting the gossip rag it deserves."

We are just not sure whether that design will be good or bad for the success of the site. The editor of the site will remain anonymous. But now the Gawker empire has an editorial director - Choire Sicha. Now you missed a chance there Mlle. Spiers!

:GET THE CHARTS

Bluejake did an analysis of Nick and Jason's blog empires with Technorati data in the wake of today's mini NY bloggers conference/event or whatevs. So if you go there, be prepared to know the hard facts about the nanowar. You can even download the Excel file of the analysis.

Yeah, that's exactly Calacanis' words for the upcoming NY Bloggers mini conference organized by Jake "Scooby Doo "bkin, where various personalities of the blogging world will collide. And we haven't expected anything else from Jason McCabe.

"I'm looking forward to the no-rules, cage match with Nick Denton. I've been doing serious training for this one... I'm going to be in the top mental and physical shape of my publishing career. I'm guaranteeing two things: 1. a lot of pain, and 2. a knock-out by the 3rd round."

So, MTV, it's time to run your first blogger celebrity death match. It's gonna be one of the most anticipated Mondays (May, 3rd) evs.