gavinpurcell.com

So things are a little nutty over at the Gawker Empire.

Most of us already know that there was a shake-up at Gawker recently, mostly over what seems to be a relatively smart change in the way that Gawker bloggers are being paid. Essentially it moves them from a pay-per-post system to what amount to a pay-per-attention structure. Which might make perfect sense in the world of quality = pageviews and/or readership.

However, there have been some interesting turns of events as the bloggers there look to cash in on the system. And thanks to Gawker’s open policy of posting page views, we can see what each of these attempts might be pulling in for the bloggers in terms of extra scratch.

First, Nick (not Denton) Douglas at Gawker posted about 2girls1cup, goatse and a number of other not-so-nice internet memes. The crowd there (at Gawker) did not take to this well and had their say in the comments, going so far as to continue the discussion on other blogs. To me, the post seemed relatively harmless and perhaps was just ill-timed to be connected to the page view change.

TOTAL VIEWS TO DATE: 27, 514 VERDICT: Meh.

Next, Gizmodo has drawn the ire of the tech blogging community for what’s been dubbed ‘Gizmodo-gate’, the use of a TV-B-Gone device to turn off of several TVs (some during demos) at CES 2008. While this ’scandal’ continues to play out and the blogger who filmed/edited the bit has now been banned from CES, he’ll most likely end up with the equivalent of the ‘monthly sales plaque’ because people are watching.

TOTAL VIEWS TO DATE: 558,090+ VERDICT: Bingo. Traffic baby.

And finally, something that jumped out at me today, a post from the mostly-awesome Jezebel that pretty much live blogs an intimate encounter directly following a long day at AEE, the Adult Entertainment Expo. Now as a reader of nearly all the Gawker blogs, including at times Fleshbot (the adult media themed Gawker property), I find it’s still relatively rare you have the opportunity to read such a raw and unfiltered look at a personal intimate encounter (or if you will a PIE). That said, I read it and I’d read it again.

TOTAL VIEWS TO DATE: 24,129 VERDICT: On the way up. Probably will at least triple today.

Anyways, it’ll be interesting to watch what else comes out of this. Maybe Nick, happy with the nest egg he’s made, is just sitting back watching this whole thing play out as some giant human experiment. It’s certainly kinda freaky.