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Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

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Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#31
What happened here is that a few blogs like The Consumerist were profitable enough to support a few people, Gawker bought them to try to make something much bigger out of them.

Now that the economy is turning sour they will try to sell them.

But if you're efficient enough you might still be able to eek out a living from a blog like the consumerist. It's not a business with a capitol B, but it's a living.

Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#32
post #16

the startup party is over. i really doubt HN will take off. but then again, most people here don't want that anyway.

I don't think the startup party is over: I think the tourists have gone home. HN has taken off as an extremely useful community for serious entrepreneurs. And based on the vast majority of submissions and comments that I read, "most people here" want serious conversation.

i don't think the tourists have gone home: i think they ran out of money.

you say tomato, i say potato.

did i say the community was not useful or that it didn't want serious conversation?

Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#33
post #30

Damn, now how am I going to find out what Kevin Rose is up to?

I believe he'll keep you covered. Afterall, he does have @kevinscold (found via valleywag).

Not to mention a blog, and formerly a tumblelog as well. The guy's connected.

Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#34
post #16

the startup party is over. i really doubt HN will take off. but then again, most people here don't want that anyway.

Hacker News take off? God, I hope it doesn't. I like this community as it is: small, informed, grammatically capable, and rather elitist.

Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the startup party is over: I think the tourists have gone home. HN has taken off as an extremely useful community for serious entrepreneurs. And based on the vast majority of submissions and comments that I read, "most people here" want serious conversation.

i don't think the tourists have gone home: i think they ran out of money. you say tomato, i say potato. did i say the community was not useful or that it didn't want serious conversation?

When tourists run of out money they go home. That's why they are called tourists and not homeless.

Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#37
post #33
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe he'll keep you covered. Afterall, he does have @kevinscold (found via valleywag).

Not to mention a blog, and formerly a tumblelog as well. The guy's connected.

I guess the sarcasm wasn't evident.

Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#39
post #12
post #10

I think startups are the wrong place for a gossip rag to be hanging out. Keep that garbage in Hollywood please.

You've obviously not spent much time hanging around with the "Web 2.0" crowd in SF. Ripe for ridicule.

Except, rather than deflating the vanity and pretentiousness, Valleywag on net inflated it, directing even more incestuous attention to superficialities and private lives.

I wish Denton luck in his other titles. I hope Boutin, the one byline most consistently puckish rather than nasty, continues to find other outlets. But overall I'm glad Valleywag is folding; it leaked an unhealthy amount of sewage into the intertubes.

Re: Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale

#40
post #14
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen my share of gossip-worthy stories, but I'd rather hear about them in the dead pool.

Except "buzz" is part of what produces growth. And it's almost guaranteed that "buzz" is generally empty, shallow people interacting with other empty, shallow people (because that's 90% of the world's population). That produces gossip, and buzz, and more buzz, and tabloid journalism, and billions of dollars. "Hollywood" is the perfect paradigm for that.

The kind of "buzz" that creates growth for tech companies is "gee whiz, check out this young/new/innovative/life-changing/giant-killing company/technology." Not cynical mockery.

And the culture of vapid celebrity that sells magazines/TV/movies doesn't sell tech. Even the Facebook/MySpace masses could hardly care less about gossip of those companies' founders and executives. At best, such gossip is industry 'inside baseball'... and so it should be judged for accuracy and relevance, not snark and salaciousness.

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