Denton on the Yahoo/Gawker break-up

By: Candace Lombardi
Topics: Media

Nick Denton, the publisher of Gawker Media, posted on Wednesday the "bald truth" on his blog about his company's recent split with Yahoo.

Gawker Media owns the blogs Gawker, Gizmodo, Wonkette, Lifehacker and Defamer, which Yahoo News sometimes drew upon for content.

Denton said that Gawker Media is "letting our content partnership with Yahoo lapse" and that "the break-up was mutual." The Yahoo partnership resulted in a lot of publicity for Gawker, but little in the way of visits to the site, said Denton. He added that the parting of ways had nothing to do with Yahoo's recent finances or general content disputes. (Some of the Gawker blogs that Yahoo had a deal to draw from were of a tabloid nature.)

"Yahoo execs, while they occasionally made their displeasure known, never pressured us to remove a post. They were considerably more sanguine, at least in public, than their supposedly worldly counterparts in traditional media," said Denton.

In early July, Denton completed an overhaul of his blog sites that included the reassignment or replacement of several editors from Manhattan gossip blog Gawker, gadget blog Gizmodo, and the travel blog Gridskipper, The New York Times reported.

In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET.

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by Noval53 January 15, 2010 2:06 AM EST: Haiti will never succeed as a country until it can build a reasonably good road system. Everything you touch from any market must move by road at some point. The US cannot prosper without a good road/highway system and neither can Haiti. Once this disaster is somewhat past, what Haiti needs "first" so that anything of lasting good can happen, is help in developing infastructure; and the foundation of that is "roads".; Reply to this comment


by rwsmith29456 January 15, 2010 12:22 AM EST: Having survived a disastrous hurricane that was nowhere NEAR as bad as this let me say that getting help there is essential and we should move as quickly as possible, but don't expect things to happen overnight BECAUSE nothing works and there is no place to go and you couldn't get there if you tried. Roadways are blocked and services that you'd expect to be restored fairly quickly are going to be down for some time, like for weeks or months. Even if something works it is either inaccessible or blocked from moving out. The priorities are to get water, food, medicine and housing (tents?) and sanitation that includes getting bodies out of the rubble and the streets to prevent disease but then the problem is where to put them. Standing around wringing your hands saying 'Why don't they do something?' isn't going to help as much as a sustained effort.; Reply to this comment


by erb0087 January 14, 2010 9:14 PM EST: by pdxdave January 14, 2010 5:56 PM EST
Why isn't Obama DOING anything?

These poor peolpe are suffering, and he has done NOTHING but talk!
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"U.S. paratroopers flow into Haiti; Obama pledges $100 million in aid

Washington Post
Thursday, January 14, 2010; 7:01 PM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Hundreds of U.S. Army paratroopers began flowing into Haiti on Thursday as the death toll from Tuesday's devastating earthquake climbed and international relief workers stepped up efforts to rescue people trapped under tons of rubble.

Amid what appeared to be growing public frustration with the Haitian government's inability to mount any organized relief operation, search-and-rescue teams from the United States and various other countries carried out the grueling, painstaking work of extricating people from the wreckage, joining Haitian civilians who have been digging people out with their bare hands since the 7.0 magnitude quake struck shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday.

In Washington, President Obama pledged $100 million in aid to support what he called one of the largest international relief efforts in history, and the Department of Health and Human Services said it is deploying more than 250 personnel to Haiti and could send 12,000 more in the coming days.

According to Haitian officials, including a national Red Cross coordinator, as many as 50,000 people may have been killed in the quake, which reduced much of the Haitian capital to ruin.

The U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division flew to Haiti Thursday afternoon, while some 2,000 Marines prepared to load up on three ships for deployment to aid the devastated country."; Reply to this comment


by erb0087 January 14, 2010 8:31 PM EST: by pdxdave January 14, 2010 5:59 PM EST
Socialism breeds poverty and dangerous living conditions.
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pdxdave breeds nothing but far right wing hot air.

------------------------------------------------------
Sweden:

"Sweden?s entire population has equal access to health care services. The Swedish health care system is government-funded and heavily decentralized. The health care system in Sweden is financed primarily through taxes levied by county councils and municipalities.

Sweden regularly comes top or close to the top of worldwide healthcare rankings...

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government and a highly developed economy. It ranks first in the world in The Economist's Democracy Index...

...Being an advanced industrial nation, research plays a key role for economic development as well as for society at large, Sweden's high-quality scientific and technological development is renowned throughout the world.

Altogether, the public and the private sector in Sweden allocate nearly four per cent of GDP to research & development (R&D), which makes Sweden one of the countries that invest most in R&D in terms of percentage of GDP. The standard of Swedish research is high and Sweden is a world leader in a number of important fields. Sweden tops Europe in comparative statistics both in terms of research investments as a percentage of GDP and in the number of published scientific works per capita.

Though a relatively small country, Sweden has long been at the forefront of research and development. For several decades, the Swedish government, committed to strengthening R&D, has set high priorities on scientific and R&D activities. This strong engagement has helped make Sweden a leading country in terms of innovation.

For many years, Sweden has been a leading player among OECD countries in terms of its investments in and use of advanced technology. In international comparison, Swedish high-technology manufacturing is relatively large in all high-technology segments, and particularly in telecommunications and pharmaceuticals..."; Reply to this comment


by erb0087 January 14, 2010 8:21 PM EST: In America safe buildings are a matter of government law and enforcement.

We don't have safe buildings because construction companies are trying to get an edge on their competitors in free market competition.

We have safe buildings because the Government (which in America means WE THE PEOPLE, through our elected representatives) has made it a law.; Reply to this comment


by erb0087 January 14, 2010 8:17 PM EST: by pdxdave January 14, 2010 5:59 PM EST
Socialism breeds poverty and dangerous living conditions.

Capitalism creates wealth which pays for a higher standard of living, including safer buildings.
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Tell that to the people of Scandinavia (and Iceland). They have both socialism and capitalism, along with Universal Health Care, and they also have the world's highest standard of living.; Reply to this comment


by SusanStoHelit January 14, 2010 6:32 PM EST: Picking up food from collapsed buildings in an emergency is NOT looting. It is normal, and the right thing to do - what, you think the food should just be left to go bad as people starve? It was true in Katrina, it's true now - picking up essentials in this situation is NOT REMOTELY LOOTING. Grabbing jewelry, TVs, etc. - that's looting.; Reply to this comment

by bubbles079 January 14, 2010 5:12 PM EST

My heart goes out to all those hurt and kill by this event. I so glad that quick action has been take to help them, but I cant help but wonder why it is that aide can be sent to other countries in just days but it takes weeks and months for people right here in the US to get the same help.

My God Bless all those affected by this event and keep them safe

Reply to this comment


by ewo1977 January 14, 2010 6:39 PM EST: "but I cant help but wonder why it is that aide can be sent to other countries in just days but it takes weeks and months for people right here in the US to get the same help"

Not sure to what you are referring but it would seem an appropriate comparison to the tragedy in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. And to that I would say that the answer there is obvious.


by sero5 January 14, 2010 4:49 PM EST: Haiti has one of the most corrupt governments. Round up all the corrupt politicians and confiscate their offshore bank accounts and disperse the money to the Red Cross and other int'l aid groups.; Reply to this comment


by pdxdave January 14, 2010 3:42 PM EST: George Mason University Economist Don Boudreaux:

(T)he Haitian earthquake killed tens of thousands of people. But the quake that hit California's Bay Area in 1989 was also of magnitude 7.0. It killed only 63 people. This difference is due chiefly to Americans' greater wealth. With one of the freest economies in the world, Americans build stronger homes and buildings, and have better health-care and better search and rescue equipment. In contrast, burdened by one of the world's least-free economies, Haitians cannot afford to build sturdy structures. Nor can they afford the health-care and emergency equipment that we take for granted here in the U.S.

These stark facts should be a lesson for those who insist that human habitats are made more dangerous, and human lives put in greater peril, by freedom of commerce and industry.; Reply to this comment