So, Nick Denton is tinkering with some sort of social media platform that would incorporate private text chains, according to Ben Smith’s book “Traffic.” I find myself thinking about how you would pull such a thing off. I think it boils down to privacy settings.
What you do is, you set the default of the network to private and only if everyone on the private text chain agrees, do you change the setting of whatever content you want to share to the broader service. Otherwise, the interface would be like a fusion of a texting app and Twitter.
I think that would be a pretty cool app.
Too bad all the money of VCs is going to AI. Oh well. What could have been.
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.
One of the things I think got me blocked by Gawker founder Nick Denton on Twitter — other than my puppy-dog, obsessive interest in him — was I noticed an old YouTube video of him blathering on about how he had some sort of cohesive vision about Gawker’s inevitable “piviot to video.”
It was all bullshit, of course and nothing came of it.
After I brought a minor amount of attention to the video, it was mysteriously taken down.
Anyway, I still admire Denton a great deal — despite his obvious character flaws — and I thought a lot about him when I was bootstrapping ROKon Magazine in Seoul. I find myself thinking about all of this because I’m reading Ben Smith’s book “Traffic” and I’m learning a great deal about the rise and fall of Gawker.
Flash forward to today and it definitely seems as though podcasting is the new blogging and it’s just about mature. We’re just a few months, of course, away from its demise at the hand of some combination of LLMs and Apple Vision Pro. But, for a brief moment, there’s still a bit of time for someone to do something cool with podcasting.
I say this because there is one niche that hasn’t been filled yet — the buzzy NYC-based podcast. Or, there isn’t one relative to my little corner of the center-Left media bubble. Maybe one exists, and I just don’t know about it.
My favorite photo from the good old days of Gawker.
There’s The Town, which covers LA. There’s The Powers That Be, which covers a huge swath of things, but there’s not a popular, mass appeal NYC-centric podcast that deals with what Gawker covered — the NYC media world.
If one exists, please forgive me. Or, put another way, I’m sure one DOES exist, it’s just not as popular enough for me to know about it. I would try to create one myself, but for where I live and how much work it would involve to zero outcome.
I do have a novel to write, you know.
But I do think Puck and The Ringer should look into it. Or, alternately, maybe Crooked Media could do it and have Jon Lovett run it (though I doubt he would leave LA do to it, even though I suspect it would be tempting to him to get out from under the shadow of Jon and Tommy.)
It is curious, however, that NYC doesn’t have a popular podcast devoted specifically to it, while LA does.
It is clear to me that all of this is just so much mental masturbation. Even if I somehow stick the landing with the novel I’m writing and it’s a breakout hit success, I would not have the funds necessary to do any of this until I was nearly 60.
Oh well.
But I’m young at heart, so here goes.
As I’ve written before, if I was going to do a successor to Spy Magazine and Gawker, I would make it some sort of podcasting network. And the person I would want to build the snarky podcasting network around would be some like Julia Fox.
Emma Chamberlain
She’s got a knack for generating buzz by just being herself.
A person I would also fixate on would be Emma Chamberlain.
I would be obsessed with Fox in a fun way and with Chamberlain in a snarky way. Chamberlain is a gorgeous young woman, but she would be really easy to tease because she’s so iconic to young people with thin skins.
I think some sort of podcasting network that had a lot of savvy young people as hosts who churned out a number of podcasts a day would be a hit. The vibe I am thinking of would be a snarky, non misogynistic version of Barstool. Something like that, but done in a way that would not drive young, well educated women away.
The goal would be for those types of young women to be in on the joke, once they realized that all the snarky comments about Chamberlain were done in good fun. And I think if the podcasting network was really, really obsessed with Julia Fox’s every twitch that that, too, would be something both men and women would enjoy.
But, again, the Internet of 2024 is very very very very different from the Internet of 2004. Even podcasting is a mature market and media landscape is so diffuse these days that it would be difficult to generate the type of buzz that Gawker did back in the day.
And, yet, the counter argument is that the dynamic that made Gawker so popular — that of media outlet that was totally consumed with the goings on of the media and entertainment elite in NYC that we plebs could enjoy — is still a viable option.
I’m not saying that there aren’t podcasting networks that don’t do some of what I’m talking about. But there’s not ONE network that replicates the vibe of Gawker from 2004. I would want the morning podcast of the network to be something that media professionals streamed every morning on the their way to work, and so on.
But, again, lulz. It’s over. This is the twilight of the type of media I love.
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’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.
They say never met your heroes and it’s pretty clear that I’m never going to meet Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media. I’m blocked by Denton on Twitter and I’m completely mortified by the fact. But, alas, I have to admit that he probably has a legitimate reason to do so.
There was a moment in my life when I was pretty obsessed with not just Mr. Denton but Gawker Media. That moment in time is long gone, but the consequences of me pinging Denton all the time on Twitter remains. This situation reminds me of how there was a very influential community publisher who gave me a chance during a dark period in my life…only to realize that I was completely bonkers.
And, yet, at the same time I feel I can only feel so bad about this situation. Denton has a strong reputation as something of a journalistic mentor to young reporters in New York City and if there’s one thing I’m not good at, it’s being mentored by someone.
Fuck that.
Any mentoring of someone involves a certain level of manipulation. And so not only am I too old to be mentored by, I hate being manipulated for any reason.
So, lulz. I suppose if I write a breakout hit novel and I get to be a smug Twitter liberal, maybe I’ll meet Denton at a cocktail party and convince him to unblock me.
This is an example of how if I had been a bit more focused and stable (read: less drunk) when I was younger, I probably could be writing for Vox after having worked at Nick Denton’s Gawker Media for a few years. I could be a Blue Check Liberal on Twitter ranting about Brooklyn and smelling my own farts with The New York Times’ Trump Whisper Maggie Haberman.
Anyway, let’s get to the point.
So, I’m old. I’m a middle aged white dude who occasionally dips my mind into the TikTok universe. I’m also a former DJ at an expat bar in Seoul. So when a song of note I’ve not heard of pops up, my ears perk up. Right now, GenZ is obsessed with a song I’d never heard of.
It has a beat and you can dance to it. I really liked the sort of explosive bass line about 20% in. After hearing it on TikTok repeatedly, I finally grew curious. I was afraid it was going to be like that song “I’m Not An Addict” by K’s Choice that I thought was “I’m Automatic” and couldn’t find for 20 years. Thankfully, this was not the case. I found it almost immediately on YouTube. Here’s where things grow even more interesting. The song is actually pretty old. It’s from 2009-2010.
Ok, things are going well. It’s a great deep cut hip-hop song I didn’t know about. It’s a song I love right off the bat. I am likely to listen to it a zillian times over the next few days. Definitely has a poor man’s OutKast vibe to it. It could be a little better in some respects, but it’s a solid song as is.
I did a bit more investigation and lo and behold, it’s a cover.
The original is amazingly great. I hate that I hadn’t heard it yet. It’s a deep cut from the 1960s. It could have been updated either as hip-hop song or a just a general pop rock song with the right producer. It’s very dancable. It needs to have a little bit of a deeper bass for modern audiences, I feel, however. The Madcon cover popular on TikTok does, in fact, fix that problem.
Anyway, maybe I’m stating the obvious, but it seems as though TikTok is a pretty solid discovery tool for the audience. The only problem is, of course, it’s its entirely organic. You never know what song is going to catch the attention of GenZ.
Someone should hire me to start a neo-Gawker wanna be. Sigh.
So, MTV News is the latest news organization to “pivot” to video as an excuse to, well, lay people off. While I do believe that video is the future of online news, I am doubtful that it will be as successful in the near term as maybe people would hope.
There is a real need for good text journalism online and no amount of pivoting to video is going to change that. I might suggest doing video journalism in conjunction with text, but not as a replacement for it. Regardless, I think in the end all of this will be quaint 20 years from now when we’re using our iVizors to interact with AR and VR newscasts.
So, in that respects, MTV News — and others — are ahead of the curve. Though it’s amusing that Nick Denton about five or so years ago was babbling about video journalism…and then never delivered. That’s just weird. Don’t know what’s up with that.
But we’ll see. We’ll see how things work out, I gues.
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