Today Erin Pettigrew announced the total traffic Gawker Media has generated in little more than 7 years. Nick Denton announced the first Gawker blog, Gizmodo, on August 14th 2002, some weeks after Peter Rojas started the blog with 6 daily entries. Denton called it a low-risk experiment and wanted to know if someone could make a living from blogging.

I have no idea how much Gizmodo can bring in revenues. All I know is that weblogs are a compelling form, gadget addicts are all online, and Amazon.com’s API makes it easy to connect product with content.

Most importantly, this is a low-risk commercial experiment. Most media companies suffer from overblown editorial, an ad sales force with padded expense accounts, and overly complex publishing systems with a team of primadonna sysadmins to maintain it. By contrast, Gizmodo will be a couple of hours a day of Pete’s link-picking skills, some automatically generated Amazon.com links, and $150-worth of Movable Type. Media has never before been this lean. read more

More Gawker Media news coming across the wire, err, feed reader. Simon Owen’s Bloggsam has published an internal memo from Gabriel Snyder regarding Gawker hiring a new West Coast Editor. From the memo:

Ever since Defamer was merged into Gawker earlier this year, I’ve been looking for the right person to hire in L.A., so I’m pleased to announce someone who was worth the wait: Richard Rushfield is joining Gawker as its new West Coast Editor. From his Venice bungalow he’ll proudly fly the Defamer flag as well as pitch in with charting the general editorial direction of the site.

Richard Rushfield is slated to start at Gawker on August 31st. He was previously the Entertainment Editor at Los Angeles Times, which should fit the Defamer part of Gawker perfectly. The Defamer brand was merged into the main Gawker site in February this year, after failing to sell it. Read the full memo at Bloggasm.

Ryan Tate has the best post intro so far this year in the latest edition of Gawker-playing-Valleywag:

Remember when blogs were going to be fiercely independent firebrands who, purified of old media insidery stench, would pull no punches against traditional power structures? So much for that. Today’s laptop media is shaping up to be nothing but lapdogs.

The post is really about TechCrunch releasing those Twitter documents, and the rings on the water. I don’t care about that, old news, and really a lot of noise for typical journalistic behavior.

Yes, that’s right. Michael Arrington did what thousands have done before him, but on a blog rather than in a newspaper. So who cares? read more

CBS Interactive has recruited blogger Richard Lawson from Gawker, according to Silicon Alley Insider who also has a quote from Lawson:

I’ll basically be doing what I do now, just probably fewer posts a day plus some actual reviews and stuff. I’m excited/nervous/gassy. All that.

Richard Lawson is one of the key entertainment writers on Gawker, and apparently averaged 2.4 million pageviews per month which is top of the bill according to the SAI story. In other words, a blow to the Gawker Media network, not only by the loss of a writer but also in pure money since it is unlikely that his replacement will reach the same levels quickly.

Lawson will write for CBS Interactive’s TV.com.

I’ve been watching the BloodCopy debacle for some time. BloodCopy is a new blog in the Gawker Media blog network, about vampired. Problem is, it is a big ad in itself, the whole blog is a HBO promo for the TV series True Blood.

There’s disclosure, hidden away in the Gawker Media footer. There’s no “sponsored post” text or anything. The campaign is, at the very least, balancing along the edge of what is deemed OK within the blogosphere.

We’d better get used to it. read more

If you’re a blog network like Gawker Media, mixing rumors and news with celebrity stalking and snarky commentary, you need a demo reel to go with it. Luckily, enough people have spoken out against the network blogs, and they have been featured in a fair share of popular culture TV shows (you missed the Californication Gawker mugshot, guys!) to make for an interesting video. read more

I’m reading that Valleywag ring leader Owen Thomas is leaving the site, which is really nothing more than a column on Gawker these days, to work at NBC. Ryan Tate, the now former night editor, is taking Thomas’ place, and Duncan Riley thinks he’ll do OK. Best of luck to everyone involved.

Choire Sicha and Alex Balk, two former Gawker editors, have decided to venture out on their own. The Awl is their creation, a not so pretty blog at the moment. The welcome post is nothing to get excited about, but the about page tells the story a bit more thorough:

It was birthed from the following thoughts: What if there were a website that zippily surveyed a wealth of resonant, weird, important, frightening, amusing bits of news and ideas? And what if it weren’t totally clogged with reality show linkbait?

I’m surprised to see that Gawker doesn’t go all snarky and silly on the launch. But then again, how could they, with Sicha and Balk starting off by posting the Gawker Media HQs layout, and then completing with their own?

Valleywag, ie Gawker these days, runs a story about a rumor stating that Google might stop pumping money into Firefox, and start pushing their own web browser instead, Google Chrome. The angle is pretty aggressive against Google, and the story is wrapped up with this paragraph:

It makes sense that Google would want to support its own Chrome Web browser. And yet bullying a nonprofit would seem to clash with Google’s “don’t be evil” motto. Perhaps “don’t lose money” has become more important.

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It appears as if Nick Denton wasn’t able to sell his celebrity gossip (aren’t they all?) blog Defamer. Instead, it is now becoming a part of Gawker.com – the entertainment column according to PaidContent. Said business site is quoting a blog post written by Denton which unfortunately is no longer available, it just redirects to the not so updated nickdenton.org blog – it’s back up! Assuming PaidContent got it right, Denton said “the brand was worth more to us — as a section of the Gawker site”.

Free translation: The bids we got were too low, and we can use the 900,000 monthlies to strengthen our key brand.

The defamer.com site will show all Defamer posts from Gawker, but the team is leaving to do something else, yet to be announced.

You might remember Valleywag making a similar transition late last year.