Comments on: nick denton disses bloggers

By: Get Real

Get Real — Tue, 10 May 2005 22:28:05 +0000

Hugh Macleod on Nick Denton In The New York Times Piece

Hugh is dead on: [ from gapingvoid: nick denton disses bloggers] Gawker Media’s blog format notwithstanding, Nick is basically in a traditional, Old Media, advertising-funded biz model. The last thing his business needs is clients discovering blogging …

By: Crossroads Dispatches

Crossroads Dispatches — Tue, 10 May 2005 21:08:51 +0000

We’re All Journalists in the Age of Ordinary Art

Now which blog did I read an

By: Brian Massey

Brian Massey — Tue, 10 May 2005 12:32:13 +0000

If Nick was 100% true about the make up of bloggers, so what? The only hope for change is that there is someone to “…believe there’s going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed.”
What these “unemployed marketers” et. al. are doing is developing books and selling Bespoke Tailors and remapping the Web every 24 hours. It sounds like these folks are doing something.

By: brian moffatt

brian moffatt — Mon, 09 May 2005 22:25:19 +0000

Very clever juxtaposition of opposing 'ways', that of the old school middle man cum work through me agent and that of the new school stand alone voice. I've read a fair number of shirky's essays over the last few years, but hadn't, for whatever reason, read anything, from him, quite like the linked piece. The man can write. (Anybody can, if they just let themselves get out of the way.) Strip the control and compromise from the publishing, head for the personal truth, and you end up with some very engaging writing - Clay's cultural mashup, the Midwestern American in the NYC Iranian Bud Bodega, implies some greater insights - both personal and universal - more than the mere and routine 'Gee isn't NYC great.' I now have some notion of him beyond his ideas, which also puts his ideas into a more shapely context. This is the type of writing that will become 'regular' - running to the vast sea of producers idea. This is a threat to the old school. It undermines, as shirky implies, cynicism, snarkiness, sentimentalism, censorship, and aggregation. People aren't watching when they're creating. Big Media and their mini-media Gawkers will be left holding onto to nothing but Fred Dirst's penis.

By: AdPulp

AdPulp — Mon, 09 May 2005 21:36:59 +0000

Denton Stiff-Arms Blog Evangelists On His Way To The Bank Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media's bevy of blogs, debunks the revolutionary nature of blogs in the New York Times, calling them, "just the latest iteration of Internet media." It's an interesting piece, given that Denton's a leading figure...

By: The Post Money Value

The Post Money Value — Mon, 09 May 2005 12:56:14 +0000

New York Times — Well, there’s always Fish

When I was younger, my Mom used to have a fairly standard ritual on Sunday; that being the reading of the New York Times: Sunday edition. Regardless of what town/state/country we were living in, that was fairly standard fare in my house. I’m on the

By: jTH

jTH — Mon, 09 May 2005 10:59:58 +0000

Two in one day
Gwaker story and Op/Ed on Ethics ( for the Times it’s called the Blair Witch Project )
Reading both, I had the image of the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz.
“I’m melting, I’m melting .…”
Pattern to the shrinking circulation, shifts of readership to the blogosphere, among other channels.
Might as well challange the opposition
Keep up the good work(s)

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 09 May 2005 08:21:06 +0000

Re: upthread comment
When quotes from bloggers within term papers are accepted by high school English teachers, I’ll believe they are more than a passing blip on the media radar.
On at least two occasions, elements from some pieces found somewhere in the dusty annals of my blog have formed footnoted parts of graduate theses in communications and power … not exactly high school, but getting there.
Gave me a tingle, it did, when I found out.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 09 May 2005 08:00:22 +0000

Hugh,
I agree completely with your comments about decent writers no longer needing publishers. This point is exactly why I am trying to brush up my writing skills, and I don’t think I am unique in this regard. I think there are many people like me who don’t give a toss about “Free Media” as a movement, but who *do* recognise the advantages that are offered by the changing landscape in publishing.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Mon, 09 May 2005 06:05:58 +0000

Something very similar is going on within (yeah, not so much outside of it ...) the field of journalism and the time worn "ethics" discussion: http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_05_08.html#009627 What this piece points out extremely well that it's about TRUST - trust as an individual's decision and not as a corporate or institutional code or policy. Of course, this is an immensely political issue, hence all that lashback by the powers that be or, rather, were ...

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Mon, 09 May 2005 03:57:15 +0000

Great comments, great points.
Indeed, Nick .. why bother making any noise at all .. just go back to managing your people and your business .. keep at it, and when the time is right make way for other, more interesting propositions that WILL come along

By: Natali

Natali — Mon, 09 May 2005 02:41:28 +0000

If it’s not a revolution, why are they writing about it? Surely what’s unimportant is just ignored and allowed to dissipate by itself without any fuss whatsoever.

By: Ric

Ric — Sun, 08 May 2005 21:10:51 +0000

Seems to me that if someone wants their life changed by blogs/blogging, it probably will be. I don’t think we’ve yet seen all the uses to which blogging COULD be put, so we don’t know yet what effect they will have. Sounds like Nick Denton has some turf he wants to protect from somebody like me (not unemployed, or partially employed; not a marketing professional, never tried being a journalist — you don’t know me Mr Denton, so don’t try and tell me how my life will or won’t go).

By: Dawn

Dawn — Sun, 08 May 2005 21:01:40 +0000

Seems to me that “professionals” with standards of credibility are going to have to break off from the generic “blogger” to be seen as viable for the long term. When quotes from bloggers within term papers are accepted by high school English teachers, I’ll believe they are more than a passing blip on the media radar.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Sun, 08 May 2005 20:49:12 +0000

Stephen, also, with blogs I think a decent writer doesn’t need publishers anymore. Not even nanopublishers. It’s simply too easy to use a blog to create your own brand/fan base/body of work etc.