Business 2.0 takes on and exposes the secrets of Nick Denton’s Gawker Media blogging empire:
Of course, if it were that simple, everyone would be doing it. Denton, 37, has figured out a couple of tricks. 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.
He might just be trying to generate buzz, but Nick totally disputes the numbers:
There’s only one problem: Business 2.0’s desperation to show that there is big business in independent internet media. Even if there isn’t yet. Lindsay has to inflate or project forward the numbers, or there’s no story.
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