Tag: Gawker

Steal This Business Plan!

I got this from ChatGPT when asked.

Business Plan: Podcast Inspired by Gawker

It can be done, Crooked Media!

Executive Summary:
Our podcast, tentatively titled “GawkCast,” aims to fill the void left by the now-defunct Gawker blog by providing sharp, irreverent, and thought-provoking commentary on culture, media, politics, and current events. Leveraging the legacy of Gawker’s fearless and sometimes controversial approach, GawkCast will target an audience of young, educated urbanites hungry for smart, edgy content. With a diverse range of hosts and guests, we will deliver engaging discussions, interviews, and storytelling that challenge conventional perspectives and spark conversation.

1. Business Description:
GawkCast will be a podcast platform producing weekly episodes, each exploring different facets of contemporary culture, media, politics, and society. The podcast will combine elements of news analysis, opinion pieces, interviews, and investigative reporting, aiming to entertain, inform, and provoke critical thinking among its audience.

2. Market Analysis:
There is a growing demand for podcasts that offer sharp commentary and analysis on current events, pop culture, and societal issues. With the demise of Gawker, there is a gap in the market for a podcast that embodies its fearless and irreverent spirit. Our target audience consists of young adults (18-35) who are highly educated, socially conscious, and digitally savvy. This demographic is known for their appetite for engaging, provocative content that challenges mainstream narratives.

3. Competitive Analysis:
While there are many podcasts in the cultural commentary space, few have the same fearless and boundary-pushing approach as Gawker. However, competitors such as Slate’s “Culture Gabfest,” Vox’s “The Weeds,” and “The Joe Rogan Experience” have established loyal audiences with their unique takes on culture, politics, and current events. GawkCast will differentiate itself by embracing Gawker’s legacy of boldness and irreverence while offering a diverse range of voices and perspectives.

4. Marketing and Sales Strategy:
To build awareness and attract listeners, GawkCast will employ a multi-faceted marketing strategy including:

  • Social media promotion: Leveraging platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to engage with our target audience, share episode highlights, and spark conversation.
  • Cross-promotion: Partnering with other podcasts and media outlets with similar audiences to cross-promote episodes and reach new listeners.
  • Influencer partnerships: Collaborating with influencers and thought leaders in relevant niches to promote GawkCast to their followers.
  • Email newsletters: Building an email list to communicate with subscribers, share updates, and highlight upcoming episodes.

5. Operations Plan:
GawkCast will be produced by a dedicated team of producers, hosts, and researchers. The production process will involve brainstorming episode ideas, researching topics, booking guests, recording and editing episodes, and promoting content across various platforms. We will prioritize diversity and inclusion in our hiring practices to ensure a wide range of perspectives and voices are represented in our content.

6. Financial Plan:
The primary sources of revenue for GawkCast will include:

  • Advertising: Selling sponsorships and ad spots within episodes to relevant brands and advertisers.
  • Merchandise: Developing and selling branded merchandise such as t-shirts, mugs, and stickers to fans and supporters.
  • Premium content: Offering exclusive bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and ad-free listening experiences to subscribers for a monthly fee.

7. Growth Strategy:
In the long term, GawkCast aims to expand its audience and influence by:

  • Producing high-quality, engaging content that consistently attracts and retains listeners.
  • Building a strong community around the podcast through social media engagement, live events, and listener feedback.
  • Expanding into other mediums such as video content, live streaming, and written articles to reach new audiences and diversify revenue streams.
  • Collaborating with other media outlets, influencers, and brands to increase visibility and reach.

Conclusion:
GawkCast aims to revive the spirit of Gawker in podcast form, providing a platform for bold, irreverent commentary on culture, media, politics, and society. With a strategic marketing plan, a commitment to diversity and inclusion, and a focus on high-quality content, we believe GawkCast has the potential to become a leading voice in the cultural commentary space.

We Need A New Gawker

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Reading Ben Smith’s book “Traffic” has really riled me up on a daydreaming basis. It seems like with the rise of Xinnals that the time is ripe for a online publication that would follow in the footsteps of the 80s Spy Magazine and the early aughts Gawker.

Something snarky that would take the “cool kids” of media, culture and entertainment down a notch every once in a while.

And, yet, there are a lot — A LOT — of problems with this idea.

One is, lulz, something like a Gawker is quaint and moot in the age of AI. We may all be talking to our Digital Personal Assistant in the metaverse using our Apple Vision Pros and the whole idea of “reading” will be cast aside like cursive.

So, I think this is it. We’re never going to get punk back. We’re never going to have another a late night TV talkshow host who is like a young David Letterman and we’re never going to have another Spy or Gawker.


The economics just aren’t there.

I can tell you one thing, though, if I had the means to at least attempt a startup that was meant to follow in the footsteps of Spy and Gawker, I would do it. But it wouldn’t be as much fun as Nick Denton back in the day, though, cause I would be 20 years older — or more — doing it.

I hate being old.

Learning A Lot About Nick Denton In An Unexpected Way

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m reading Ben Smith’s “Traffic” and am delighted that I’m learning a lot about Gawker founder Nick Denton. But I also realize that I really need to recalibrate my expectations about my future.

While got my emotional knees broken in my mid-30s when I started ROKon Magazine in Seoul, at the same age Denton was starting up Gawker. As such, even if I somehow stick the landing and write a breakout hit novel….I’m not going to have the TYPE of success I always thought I would.

I have to accept that not only would I be in my mind-50s when I’m a published author — even if all goes according to plan — but because I will be so late in life having any sort of measurable success that it will all just not be what I thought I would get when I was younger.

I will get what I want and yet not really get what I want because of how old I am when I get it.

But the book Traffic is pretty good so far. I’m pleased that I’m actually reading all these books I need to read.

The Blogging Era Ends With A Whimper

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, (Undead) Gawker is wrapping up publication….AGAIN. It definitely seems as though this is the end of an era. I don’t know about you, but I live in something of a passive infotainment bubble that is centered around Twitter and Tik-Tok. I can’t think of one blog or news / entertainment site that I go out of my way to view on a regular basis.

And it’s probably only going to get worse with the advent of things like chatbots that scan the web then give you your answer based on a dataset.

I kind of makes me sad for a number of reasons. We — or at least I — have to accept that it’s over, all the fun I used to have with the old Gawker is never coming back, just like my wasted, dissipated youth.

So, in that regard, the Web is fully mature. We’re kind of waiting around for the Next Big Thing to happen and it’s not going to be some cool, new, snarky Website. It might be the equivalent of that in the metaverse or somehow something via a chatbot but the traditional blog is just no longer a viable commercial option.

In a way, Twitter does what Gawker used to do, but instead of a funny article, you just see a funny viral tweet. I will note, however, that the most traffic this lowly site has ever gotten came from something celebrity related. I think if you were going to try to start something like Gawker up, you would have to lean into celebrity culture in some way.

Though, I suppose there remains a very, very limited window of opportunity for someone to create a podcasting network that covers the major cities of New York City, San Francisco and LA then direct listeners to a blog of some sort. That’s the only way I can think of you might, just might, be able to bring back the fun of the original Gawker before it went nuts and got all nasty for no reason.

An Unexploited Podcasting Space

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As we enter 2023, I can’t help but be reminded of how the podcasting interesting has kind of entered something of a rut, at least to me as a listener. It would be fun if there was a young, hip — and snarky — podcasting network that evoked the early days of Gawker Media.

You would use the same formula that Nick Denton with the Gawker blogs — you setup semi-daily podcasts devoted to a the events around on specific city. So, New York City would be meda, celebrity and finance, LA would be devoted to showbiz and DC would be focused on politics and San Francisco devoted to tech. You hire young, passionate media people just out of college — read cheap — and let them have it.

Now, here and there you find podcast networks that have elements of this, but not all in one place. Some of the podcasts that Crooked Media does have potential, but they’re not really the focus of the Crooked Media network. If the podcasting network I propose became a success, you could direct listeners to blogs produced by your media company.

I have a feeling the money for such a dream has come and gone. Maybe if it was 10 years ago, you could pull this idea off. But podcasting pretty mature now. So, lulz. What do I know.

Sometimes, I Miss The Old Gawker: The Agony and the Ecstasy That Is Julia Fox

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really like Julia Fox. She’s got to be one of the weirdest, most interesting public women in the world right now. She claims she’s deadened to sex because of her time as a dominatrix when she was younger, but…lulz? Anyway, the thing about Ms. Fox is she’s a prime example of how there is a huge void in the media world at the moment.

Julia Fox

There is a space that isn’t being serviced — the old Gawker space.

Barring aliens landing on the front lawn of the White House and demanding a new Gawker being founded…I fear that era of media is over. Just like rock is sadly dead, the era of snarky celebrity coverage is dead, too. That era petered out just about the moment that Twitter cooped snark to the point that it’s everywhere and nowhere all at once.

So we have someone like Julia Fox and no one site to read about her exploits. All we have is a bunch of rabid Twitter accounts that follow her every twitch — and there are a lot of them. I mean, now she’s talking about how she only dated Ye because she wanted to get him out of Kim’s life? What the what?

And she does this all the while running around the major cities of the world in barely there “fashion forward” apparel. You can’t make this shit up.

Anyway. More power to you, Julia. You’re a very interesting woman and maybe when I blow up with my DJ money one day soon I might — might? — get to meet you. Wink.

Thanks For The Memories, Old Gawker, or ‘Don’t Meet (or Get Blocked By) Your Heroes’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I know why the first days of Gawker meant so much to me — I was going to a pretty dark phase of my generally dissipated life and reading the old Gawker back in the day really helped me out. It was like eaves dropping on a really cool conversation between two New Yorkers who otherwise would never give someone like me the time of day.

But that was the first few years of the “Old Gawker,” not the Undead Gawker that we have now. And, honestly, something really, really weird happened to Old Gawker in its final days. For people who were paying close attention to the site, it jumped the shark a few times to the point that there was not much point in reading it anymore. One a number of occasions, it posted spiteful, hateful and sometimes nearly obscene posts that seemed designed to drive people like me away from it.

By the time it was driven out of business by a Peter Thiel-funded attorney, it didn’t feel like that much was lost.

At some point between when the Old Gawker collapsed and the present day I discovered that one of my publishing heroes — Nick Denton, the founded of Gawker — blocked me on Twitter. I suppose, all things considered, that relative to his world view I probably deserved that. It still hurts, though.

Anyway, I’ve finally reached the age where I have to accept that it’s time to move on. Much of what made the Old Gawker so interesting is now found all over the Internet, specifically Twitter and a few corners of Tik-Tok. Barring something truly amazing, I’m never going to start my own Gawker-like publication.

This is it. Whatever happens, will probably happen in some way because I sell a novel in a traditional manner and even if that happens, I’ll be too old to really enjoy it the way I always wanted to.

An Unexploited Podcast Space

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, just checking my personal Webstats here, I can tell you that there is a huge market for celebrity news. And, as far as I know, while there are a lot of podcasts that deal with celebrity news, it seems like if you assembled an early-Gawker like team that you might be able to find some success.

You get a bunch of young, just out of college people to produce a series of different podcasts about different elements of the celebrity world then use whatever attention you get from doing that to direct the audience to a 2004-like Gawker. That’s how you would be able to bootstrap your site to success, even though the blog industry is very, very mature at this point.

Or, put another way, the aesthetic of the old Gawker doesn’t really exist in modern media. Most of the vibe of the early days of Gawker has drifted to Twitter to the point that we don’t even think about it. The average Twitter user is bombarded on a daily basis with crowdsourced snark.

But I do think if you could replicate the snark of Spy, Late Night With David Letterman and the original Gawker with a new podcasting network that you would find success. I just think that if you sort of had a Buzzfeed meets Gawker type podcast network then maybe there would be an audience. You draw people in to your podcast network by obsessing over celebrity then once people are listening or reading, you throw in some more serious reporting.

And, yet, it could be that my lingering obsession with the old Gawker is showing in the sense that, lulz, the old Gawker just isn’t coming back. No amount of me pining for it is going to make it happen.

So, I don’t know. I think that no amount of complaining on my part is going to change anything. Just like rock music is dead, it’s possible that the cool snarky content that I really enjoyed during a dark time in my life a long time ago simply isn’t going to come back.

The Vision Thing: How I Would Bootstrap A New Spy Magazine-Like Publication

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are a lot, and I mean, A LOT of problems with any suggestion that there might be anything like the old Gawker. Now, when I say “the old Gawker,” I mean the Gawker of around 2003-2004 that was very similar to the even older idea of Spy Magazine. The later Gawker was shit and the new, Undead Gawker is just…undead.

But it’s a nice summer evening and I think I’ll give you my vision for how I would bootstrap a new Spy Magazine-Gawker type publication.

I think if you were serious about doing it, you start the process by starting not a blog, but a podcast. You get someone like Emma “It Girl” Chamberlain (or even SNL cast member Sarah Squirm) to talk about pop culture in a way that The Youngs like. You might, in real terms, build the product from the ground up around her personality. Or something. Maybe find someone else who is cheaper.

But the point is — find a really interesting person to host a near-daily podcast about celebrities and pop culture. Then once that’s gotten some traction, you establish a blog that you point people to from the podcast. That’s how you would build traffic to the site.

Now, from my obsession with Webstats, I can tell you that there is an insatiable interest in celebrities and pop culture. Some of the most traffic that comes to this blog — that almost no one reads — comes from people interested in a stray post about this or that celebrity.

I would suggest you obsess about Julia Fox’s every twitch. She’s such an interesting person that it’s a shame that there’s not one specific publication that simply details what she’s been up to. And then, once you get enough traffic to the blog, you start to cover politics. And then you maybe build out a podcasting network.

Ta-dah!