Gawker’s launched a personals section. Powered by Spring Street Networks, which is Nerve.com, Gawker’s personals join their text links and ad blocks as yet another effort to make money through advertising and services.
On one level this is amusing (always a euphemism for annoys the hell out of me): The good-natured but always snooty Gawker has done a deal with the same provider fueling New York Magazine personals, which shows they are completely willing to bend their editorial voice and position for dollars (this, of course, is to be expected of any business and not unique). All those Williamsburg hipsters they so gleefully skewer are just the younger incarnation of the Upper East Side lizards anyway, so why shouldn’t they date from the same pool? And be too stupid to notice that’s what their favorite web site is helping them accomplish?
One another level, perhaps its an indicator of a new way smaller web sites and larger blogs are going to try to make money–You create a web site or blog with a strong core user base, first add text and paid search ads to the pages with Google, Sprinks, or WebRelevance, then layer on a personals service a la Gawker.
Advance Internet, Cox Newspapers, New Times, and Real Cities have already teamed up with Spring Street Networks to provide personals services on their local sites; so have a number of local and national magazine and media sites, including JANE, Esquire, New York Observer, Time Out New York, The Advocate, and The Onion. Now Gawker joins Nerve in offering this service. Are they the first blog to do so? Seems like it.
So now, I am wondering, does this mean we are going to start to see a slew of affinity personals listings on popular blogs?
The Political Pundit Hookup line for Instapundit and Buzzmachine?
The ‘I’m quirky, just date me’ service for BoingBoing, Gothamist, Anil Dash, and SmartMobs?
“Geeks need to get laid too” on Chris Pirillo and Doc Searl’s blogs?
Certainly, many of the new “identity networks’ like Tribe have to be looking at the success of Friendster and thinking about how to get a piece of that pie. And partnering and syndicating services is the smart way to go in terms of adding revenue producing bits.
And yet at the same time, as a reader, I feel annoyed that Gawker turned this feature on….unlike asking people to pay for the site, offering a premium service, or even adding more text ads, it feels contrary to their editorial voice — and that makes me feel, somehow, like I am being played.
Gawker’s launched a personals section. Powered by Spring Street Networks, which is Nerve.com, Gawker’s personals join their text links and ad blocks as yet another effort to make money through advertising and services.
On one level this is amusing (always a euphemism for annoys the hell out of me): The good-natured but always snooty Gawker has done a deal with the same provider fueling New York Magazine personals, which shows they are completely willing to bend their editorial voice and position for dollars (this, of course, is to be expected of any business and not unique). All those Williamsburg hipsters they so gleefully skewer are just the younger incarnation of the Upper East Side lizards anyway, so why shouldn’t they date from the same pool? And be too stupid to notice that’s what their favorite web site is helping them accomplish?
One another level, perhaps its an indicator of a new way smaller web sites and larger blogs are going to try to make money–You create a web site or blog with a strong core user base, first add text and paid search ads to the pages with Google, Sprinks, or WebRelevance, then layer on a personals service a la Gawker.
Advance Internet, Cox Newspapers, New Times, and Real Cities have already teamed up with Spring Street Networks to provide personals services on their local sites; so have a number of local and national magazine and media sites, including JANE, Esquire, New York Observer, Time Out New York, The Advocate, and The Onion. Now Gawker joins Nerve in offering this service. Are they the first blog to do so? Seems like it.
So now, I am wondering, does this mean we are going to start to see a slew of affinity personals listings on popular blogs?
The Political Pundit Hookup line for Instapundit and Buzzmachine?
The ‘I’m quirky, just date me’ service for BoingBoing, Gothamist, Anil Dash, and SmartMobs?
“Geeks need to get laid too” on Chris Pirillo and Doc Searl’s blogs?
Certainly, many of the new “identity networks’ like Tribe have to be looking at the success of Friendster and thinking about how to get a piece of that pie. And partnering and syndicating services is the smart way to go in terms of adding revenue producing bits.
And yet at the same time, as a reader, I feel annoyed that Gawker turned this feature on….unlike asking people to pay for the site, offering a premium service, or even adding more text ads, it feels contrary to their editorial voice — and that makes me feel, somehow, like I am being played.