Gawker Advertising

The Advertising v. Editorial divide is as old as advertising itself. AdWeek, however, shines the spotlight on Gawker Media as it leads the publishing world toward fresh and innovative solutions like the Sponsor Post.

Sponsor Posts uniquely marry brand advertising with editorial-inspired content. Created to echo Gawker Media's signature tone, these branded content posts live and move directly in the editorial flow of the sites. "I know that's what's driving all the [brand] lift," VP of Sales & Marketing, Chris Batty said. "That's where all the reader attention is, not ads in the margin."

As this bizarre – and still unnamed – decade draws to a close, AdWeek is rounding up votes to see who will be dubbed "Best of the 2000s" for media, creative, agency and brand work. Of the 12 candidates in the running for Blog of the Decade, Gawker Media boasts four: Gawker, Gizmodo, Deadspin and Lifehacker. Gawker overlord Nick Denton also got a personal industry-nod with a nomination for Media Entrepreneur of the Decade.

They like us. They really like us.

Online ad inventory is as controversial an issue as ever. Is it finite or infinite? Does remnant stock actually exist in a market that operates without physical inventory? And so on, and so on, ad infinitum, heh.

But while the remnant debate rages, consider this: 'Unsold inventory' is actually an opportunity to deliver unmonetized value to a media property's readership.

In continuing this theme of finding alternative uses for our resources, we're announcing a launch partnership with Publishers with a Purpose. PWP is an organized pledge by multiple online publishers to donate 5% of advertising space to promote organizations for social good. Gawker Media will deliver tens of millions of impressions per month to further the reach of social causes.

We're particularly moved to support efforts for digital advancement like Creative Commons and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. These seminal online rights groups work to preserve and extend a digital landscape where information can travel uninhibited.

Sound worthwhile to you? Publisher reach and size are not barriers to participation, so head over to Publishers with a Purpose to join the effort.

We're not sure how a twee child making an animated slideshow works as an operating system commercial. But, who cares?! The spot is adorably compelling and Gizmodo is all over it. Watch this:

Kudos to the team at Microsoft for concepting such a fun, unexpected way to position an OS release. And congrats to our heroes at Gizmodo for producing consumer electronics journalism that the industry reads, respects, and reprints.

Stars, every last one of you.

Last week Gawker Media hosted the Luxury Marketing Council for "Luxury Brands and the Online, Affluent Consumer," featuring newly released findings from the 2009 Mendelsohn Affluent Study. Bob Shullman, President of Ipsos Mendelsohn, showed LMC members a glimpse of annual research on the top fifth of U.S. households, most importantly Mendelsohn's tracking of the wealthy's digital habits for the very first time. Gawker was among the sites measured in this initial web canvass, further solidifying the title as a fixture in the premium online news and entertainment space. A panelist presentation followed to delve into how luxe industry pros are using the Internet to connect with their target audience. Check out the web savvy crowd found mingling at the event below.

Google steers searchers toward Lifehacker on their homepage as a lead-in to the reading lists of top-notch "journalists, foodies and tech bloggers." Included in the list of journalists and bloggers to follow are two Gawker Media site editors: Adam Pash (Lifehacker) and Annalee Newitz (io9).

When Nick Denton launched the proto gadget blog Gizmodo in August 2002, it arrived on scene to a milieu of early web confusion. Until then, blogs were low traffic outlets for personal thought-flinging to be visited by friends and perhaps aggregated by Google whenever the content merited further examination. The idea to verticalize the content, add a paid author, accelerate publishing frequency, and churn a profit — well, that was new. So when the controversial Gizmodo launched (laying the foundation for Gawker Media), the self-important digital punditocracy debated this 'commercial experiment' in blogging as a viable, interesting, useful, or scalable business:

Dave Winer: It's such a stale idea. The Web is distributed. Try to get the flow to coalesce in a premeditated way. Not likely to work.

Anil Dash: Will it be profitable? I think it's possible but it's much more likely to break even long-term. Which, for the publishing industry, ain't too bad.

Matt Haughey: It's still too new of a site, but I'm looking forward to seeing how well written it is, and if it keeps me coming back. If so, and it makes the people behind it money while doing it, maybe professional blogging can work afterall.

But even Nick Denton himself had trouble with the idea's extensibility: I can't think of any other sector that works as well as gadgets. Porn is the only other vertical that seems to make sense.

Fast forward 7 years later to August 2009 and Gawker Media is a stable of 8* titles publishing 353 million pageviews per month to over 20 million unique readers. We've delivered over 8.5 billion pageviews across 7 years of newsbreaking and Forbes has called our primordial publication "One of the biggest blogs in the world." Turns out this early adventure in blogging is now one of the most established independent ventures in online publishing. Hope you're enjoying the ride.

[View full size graph : Gawker Media Traffic 2002 - 2009]

*9 for those who like smut.

Gizmodo was beyond stoked to head down to the Outerbanks of NC for an all-out summer gadgetfest sponsored by the good people at Heineken Light. Gizmodo ran a contest to pick which lucky readers would join in the extreme gadgeting. Worthy readers and tech bloggers jumped into a weekend of surfing, jet skiing, blogging and of course imbibing – living up to the Summermodo name. Check out the extreme stokage of the tech-savvy surfer crowd below. You gotta make time to kite, man.

Summermodo from gawker sales on Vimeo.