I have read that three times and it STILL doesn't make sense to me. Your writing is clear - I just cannot understand the business model of dropping writers' pay when they do well and build an audience. I just don't get it, Sam I am.

It's kind of a tricky system because now that the majority of the traffic is falling to the index (if the pview counts for each of the individual editors are consistent with last year, but overall traffic has doubled) he has an excuse to say, "Sorry guys, the numbers clearly show that none of you are attributing to the growth, here's $5!"

I think the second paragraph needs to be revised to read, "the pay rate per 1,000 pageviews."

As the sentence (and math) read now, I got jealous.

It makes sense that they have so many unshared pageviews - so many of their huge traffic pulls this year have been videos, no?

Michael Weiss only posted for what, 10 days or so in June, right? I am loving his work, although he doesn't seem like one that would benefit from being paid in page views - he's not exactly a Digg magnet. I'd think that they MUST have some different arrangement, but I could be wrong.

Great piece Choire and highly interesting!

Why do so few pageviews get attributed to writers? (I'm not an Insider didja know?)

Just wait until Sklar gets a hold of this one!

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Sheila has two logins? That is so much more lucrative than two mommies!

Hey Choire,

Some notes on your story from one of Nick's top three Frienemies.

1. Despite this change in pay Gawker is very, very competitive in terms of not only blogging jobs, but MSM jobs. Most full-time folks at Gawker are probably making 3-5k a month/36-60k a year, and some are in the 60-100k range. That's a very BIG number for folks working from home in the journalism/editorial space, many of whom are just out of school. Most folks make 20-35k out of school. Not telling you anything you don't know obviously. It makes sense that the rate will rise and fall with Gawker's RPM.

2. The five bucks for every 1,000 permalink page views (i.e. NOT the homepage, which is 50-70% of the traffic) is probably the break even point for Denton/Gawker (i.e. their RPM). So, there is no downside to giving 100% of that money away to his bloggers because it only drives more folks to the homepage/builds the brands. Denton is very, very smart in this regard.

3. Forcing folks into this model has lowered the "human capital" costs at Gawker dramatically. Nick doesn't have to fire folks, they fire themselves. Nick doesn't have to give people raises, they give them to themselves. This is a very significant savings for Nick. How many full-time editorial managers are there at Gawker? Are there any since Lock left?! What's the ratio, one manager for every 50 bloggers?

4. Gawker has eliminated the need for marketing based on this model. The marketing is now built into each editor's cognitive process. Again, genius.

5. Denton has less stress in his life. That's the main point of this. Denton doesn't like to talk much as we both know, and the last people he wants to talk to are the folks working for him. If he must talk to those folks that last thing he wants to talk about is their pay. So, if you look at Gawker as the ultimate life-style business Denton has achieved his goal: money, power, status, and no management overhead. Genius.

6. The downside? Insane amounts of inlinking in posts (one Valleywag post I just looked at had a half dozen links to earlier stories is a big one. Abuse of the "after the jump" device to the point of absurdity, and finally the selection of stories based on their diggability and SEO ability. Denton doesn't care about this obviously... it's a network built on gossip, personal attacks, and porn. Why would gaming the system matter more than those things?

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

best jason

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

So do *I*. But that's not the point, Denton is out in front and not deeply committed to making his employees feel better about life. But they're paid OK comparatively speaking and get the kind of exposure that leads to "real" jobs and book contracts.

And thanks Choire for making this understandable for the first time, ever.

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.

Once, Denton "got" what made people come to Gawker. Then he started fanning and fawning over what he "thinks" people want to read, perhaps because he thought Gawker was about him? Stuffing his idiotic friends (Julia Allison, etc.) on readers because he decides they "matter" while most people sit scratching their heads. He doesn't talk about the movers or shakers. Maybe because he's not so connected with them.

@jasoncalacanis, Denton doesn't give a shit about you. Stop sucking up.

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.

@raincoaster, yes at one point, that was what worked. If it were still working, Gawker wouldn't have had to result to writing about pop and celebrity like it is now. It's lost a lot of its edge, that can't be denied. Maybe because Denton got the idea that Gawker could "make" somebody, though he might actually succeed with Emily Gould since clearly Julia Allison was an obvious fail.

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.

A fairer business model would be to eventually reduce the writers' pay to zero and pay the commentators. People read Gawker more for the comments than for the content. And that's a circle jerk because the commentators talk more to each other than to the writers. Another alternative might be to outsource the content to India or China and let the good times roll in the comments section. But the unasked question is, Why do advertisers bother with Gawker at all? The only ad I can remember is one for Evian water that appeared near a roundup of gross scatological posts; I don't drink Evian anymore because it reminds me of that post. I suppose ad buyers think they are cool, but I see it as negative branding when the content gets so smarmy.

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.

"I can't see this model of change continuing to attract the talent and elbow grease that Denton expects"

What are you talking about? Do you know what the job environment is like for young writers? $35K to start is a dream; the chance to make $60K+ writing penis puns will be enough to motivate young writers to ruin their lives for a long time to come.