This post was updated at 8:46 a.m. PDT.
New York blog czar Nick Denton, founder and publisher of Gawker Media, is selling three of the new-media company's properties: Idolator, Gridskipper, and Wonkette.
In an internal e-mail obtained by CNET News.com, Denton explained the sale: "To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did."
When asked via instant message to comment on prices, Denton replied with "Nope!"
Music blog Idolator will be sold to Buzznet, the pop culture social-media site that has been snapping up content creators like Stereogum; editor Maura Johnston will stay at the helm. The deal, per Silicon Alley Insider, was reportedly completed over the weekend.
Gridskipper, an urban travel blog, will become part of Curbed, the blog network run by former Gawker Media editor Lockhart Steele (and in which Gawker Media has invested).
Of the three, the sale of Wonkette likely came as a surprise to longtime Gawker Media fans. "Wonkette is one of the brands with which the company is most associated; people will be shocked that we would ever part with it," he wrote. "The political site has won an array of Bloggies and other awards; it introduced (an expletive that CNET News.com cannot print) into the dictionary of political abuse; the founding editor (Ana Marie Cox)'s slippers are even on display in the new media museum in Washington, D.C."
The snappy political gossip blog Wonkette, with Cox at the helm, famously outed the "Washingtonienne," an anonymous D.C. sex blogger who dished a little too much dirt about political heavy-hitters. Now it'll be run by current editor Ken Layne as part of the Blogads network, which encompasses a number of other political titles like DailyKos.
Gawker Media has had plenty of successes, like the gadget blog phenomenon Gizmodo and feminist-culture title Jezebel. Its eponymous flagship title continues to be a mildly infamous mainstay of New York media gossip.
But Denton acknowledged that economic conditions are tightening the company's belt. In the middle of 2006 "we declared we were 'hunkering down," he wrote. "We've been waiting for the Internet bubble to burst. No, really, this time. And, even if not, better safe than sorry; and better too early than too late."
Now this is kind of cool. Chris Mohney, editor of the Gawker Media travel blog Gridskipper, has compiled a guide to "New York blogger bars," a list of watering holes where members of the digital press have been known to go and blow their meager salaries on booze.
Like the blog's earlier guide to "Nerdy New York," it's fairly accurate. I've been to the majority of establishments on the list, and typically each visit was in the company of other bloggers and new-media journalists. (Believe it or not, I do hang out with non-bloggers sometimes.) But if you're an eager visitor expecting to run into the bloggers whose snark you subsist on daily, or a not-so-eager visitor hoping to avoid obnoxious writers at all costs, Gridskipper's guide won't necessarily help you much. You're not guaranteed to run into bloggers at any of these bars, nor are you guaranteed to not run into them elsewhere. Mohney's list really might as well be called "preferred bars of the Gawker-Gothamist-Curbed crowd," because as an older New York Observer article points out, that was New York's blogger scene not so long ago.
(And these are bloggers we're talking about. Of course they like to navel-gaze.)
Not suprisingly, most bars on the list are clustered around the Lower East Side zone that local blogs have dubbed "Hell Square," which is not only filled with cheap bars (by New York standards) for writers on a budget, but is also within staggering distance of SoHo, where a sizable number of New York's new media companies are based--including Gawker Media, Gothamist, and Curbed.
But over the past few years, as digital media has matured, there are a whole lot more bloggers to be found and the blogger culture in New York is consequently much more diverse. The most glaring problem I found with Mohney's list is that only one Brooklyn bar, the digital-art space Galapagos, made the list; Brooklyn is practically crawling with bloggers (they even have their own Meetup!) and I certainly hope they don't all feel forced to cross over to Manhattan to find beer.
And meanwhile, blogger culture has expanded from its SoHo-LES roots, and especially on cold days, cranky writers will want happy hour to be closer to the workplace. CNET's New York office is located in the Flatiron District, as are some start-ups like the digital-business blog Silicon Alley Insider. Not to mention the fact that most of the city's newspapers and magazines now employ bloggers, too, and the majority of those companies are headquartered a decent distance from the Lower East Side.
Mohney even admits his forgivable short-sightedness. "This list is neither comprehensive nor fair," he wrote, "as bloggers will drink most anywhere really."
But here's one that really should've made the cut: the distinctively named East Village faux-monastery called Burp Castle, a perpetual bar of choice for local video bloggers. That is, however, a very different social set. (New York is all complicated like that.)
Urban travel blog Gridskipper has a great new list of geek hotspots in New York City: from bizarre curio shop Evolution, to comic culture megastore Forbidden Planet, to Barcade, which is exactly what you'd think it would be.
The list misses a few, like West Village gaming center Nyclan (coverage here) and the Manhattan outlet of Japan-inspired gallery and retail shop Giant Robot. But overall, this New Yorker thinks it's a decent and diverse selection that clearly indicates there's more for nerds to do around here than go for Water Taxi rides.
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