You bring up an interesting point; I'm seeing far more Gawker Artist panels than sold advertising. Didn't Richard come from the ad department? Have they just not gotten around to replacing him?

Ad sales at Gawker would appear to suck donkeys on Sundays, unlike the writing, the material and, of course, the illustrious commenters.

Not at all: they just sent out an open "Please be a Commenter" invitation. In this business model, mo' pandering mo' betta. By dumbing down Defamer in particular they up the chance that Gawker will be the next thing the lumbering masses catch on to and can't live without, like, you know, lolcats.

Denton knows very well what keeps people coming back to Gawker: themselves. It's really commenter-driven traffic now. Everyone wants to see what everyone else said to or about them. It's the most lucrative message board in history.

When you go to a pay model based on pageviews AND your site income is based on pageviews, it's not unrealistic to expect them to keep pace with one another. I can't see this model of change continuing to attract the talent and elbow grease that Denton expects; at a certain point (and surely that point is close, when a part-time mommyblogger makes more) all the smart young writers will realize they can do better elsewhere.

One way this model COULD continue to attract intelligent people is if he hires far more writers and expects fewer posts from each. As a part-time, resume-stuffing gig, Gawker Media would be attractive to a lot of people.

Jesus Christ, even *I* make more than that!