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No one can better capture the origins, influence, and trajectory of the Gawker Media network than our founder and publisher, Nick Denton:

People — particularly if they're under 40 — have news priorities other than those of the editors of The New York Times or producers of the "NBC Nightly News." A new tablet from Apple — or last night's episode of "Gossip Girl" or the adventures of the hipster grifter — is a bigger deal than the latest petty scandal in Albany. You think that's a damning indictment of modern society and a recipe for idiocracy? Fine. Start a nonprofit to cover all the local-government news you think a healthy society needs. But don't expect advertisers — or commercially-minded publishers or readers, for that matter — to share your interests.

Economic climate and old media traditions be damned. Read more from AdAge.

GamePro rounded up its 20 Most Influential People in Gaming and Brian Crecente, Managing Editor of Kotaku, anchors the list. With "investigative grit and a healthy disregard for the rules," Crecente has built Kotaku into a "powerhouse" of video gaming news and culture. Congrats to Crecente and Kotaku for the recognition!

And for anyone doubting the relevancy of gaming to real life, Crecente sets us straight in his interview:

Video games as a subject is an endlessly fascinating topic, not just because it's about how people play, but because it touches on just about everything. As gaming writers we can delve into business reporting, look at education, the medical field, sociology, crime, art, the list goes on and on. As long as we remember to explore things beyond the realm of the creation and consumption of video games there will always be an opportunity to reach a broader, more mainstream audience.

Read the full profile at GamePro.

"The family of Gawker sites has become at once a publishing success and part of the contemporary New York bohemian scene, like Andy Warhol's factory in the 1960s."

— Financial Times

Further cementing Gizmodo as a wireless industry expert, both Sprint and T-Mobile recently sourced our wireless reviews in national ad campaigns. Photos and video of both below!

Check out Sprint's flashy promotion for the new Samsung Instinct. The campaign ran both on the web and in large out-of-home billboard installations in Times Square, JFK, and other highly trafficked public spaces. Sprint drew on Gizmodo's technical expertise, quoting a wireless connectivity and speed test that we conducted in NYC.

And just a few days later we were flipping through channels and caught this T-Mobile ad! It clipped Gizmodo's ogling of the G1's screen for its 'Glowing Reviews' TV campaign. T-Mobile's reference is less technical than Sprint's, which shows the industry is catching on to Gizmodo's influence on both pure techies and lifestyle consumers. Watch:

A quick glimpse at the astounding increase in comment volume over the past few years.

In 2008, registered Gawker Media commenters posted 5.9 million missives in response to our editors' posts. That number was 120% greater than comment volume in 2007.

2009 is off to an equally impressive start. We're averaging 600,000 comments per month already (last year's monthly average hovered at 500k).

Every year, Forbes ranks the 25 most influential and recognizable digital celebrities, calling them "the biggest and brightest stars on the web." We're not sure what makes Forbes qualified to do this, but the money mag's accolades have not gone unnoticed. This year, three of our writers claimed spots on the critically eyed list - the Forbes Web Celeb 25:

Will Leitch - "rose to fame as the editor of Deadspin, the world's biggest independent sports blog"

Owen Thomas - "best known as the editor of Valleywag...infamous [!]"

Brian Lam - "man behind the curtain at one of the biggest blogs in the world—gadget site Gizmodo"

Our writers appear with other Internet notables and fameseekers: Matt Drudge, Seth Godin, Perez Hilton, Kevin Rose, etc.

It's not quite an entry in the famed book itself, but a blog post on Guinness World Records names Kotaku as the best site for gaming news. Being in the (near) company of the world's most-Amazon-like woman and dwarfest man brings inexplicable joy to us. What other digital media group can say the same? None.