Comments on: Gawker Media gets real

By: David Krug

David Krug — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 22:52:25 +0000

I’ve tried the wide model and wasn’t happy with the results. I’m working on the deep model with my first title being PopCrunch so far I’m supremely impressed but with a staff of 7 its a totally different ball game keeping them all happy. So it will be a fun little ride.

By: Hashim

Hashim — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:35:02 +0000

it’s interesting to see that the WIN model has changed over time to resemble Gawker in a few ways. For instance, new WIN titles are launched under their own domain

By: John Evans (SYNTAGMA)

John Evans (SYNTAGMA) — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:43:42 +0000

The whole point about a blog network is that it’s the aggregated page views that count, not whether individual titles are #1 or #2 in their niche. By cross-linking, the network becomes more like a magazine, with the blogs as topic sections, so the power of the whole is the whole point.

Nick Denton is creating individual titles, each a magazine in its own right. If it doesn’t succeed by his standards he closes it down. But that’s not the WIN model, despite Engadget. Denton is a newspaper proprietor working with blogs, Calacanis sees the network as the title, not the blog. They’re both publishers, but they have different models.

Most of us follow the WIN model because it doesn’t rely on individual blogs so much, which is why there are so many blogs in networks these days. The Gawker model requires almost a complete newspaper staff at each blog from the outset. It’s more expensive and problematic. Hence the constant closing down of titles whose traffic many of us would die for.

Ultimately, it’s a choice between going wide or deep. Deep is close to MSM, wide is using the full power of the blogosphere.

By: John Mudd

John Mudd — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 03:19:57 +0000

Interesting news. Thanks for the tip, Matt.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 02:54:22 +0000

Whilst I concur in general terms it’s important to remember that blog networks as a percentage of traffic still make up a very, very small portion of the blogosphere…it just happens that if you take say the top 1000, or 5000 out there, you going to see a much larger number being in blog networks. Whilst there is little doubt in my mind that there isn’t a viable long term business out there for many of the up and coming blog networks, the long tail is still very, very long….