The tech news aggregator used to rely solely on algorithm to divine what was important on the Web. Now it’s added a human, who happens to be a lot of fun to chat with.

Read More »

The New York Times is justifiably proud of the work its staff publishes on its flagship Web site every day. It’s also very proud of the first letter of its name. That seems to be the lesson in a flap between the paper and Newser, an aggregation site whose motto is “Read Less, Know More.” The Times says it is happy to let Newser link to its stories–but not to use its “T” logo.

Read More »

What happens to the value of blogs when advertising craters and big media companies go into a tailspin? Take a guess. But a new list comparing top blog operations isn’t all bad news.

Read More »

Here’s what should be the last step in Nick Denton’s slimdown of his Gawker Media empire: The blog network is taking its LA-based Defamer site and rolling it up under its central Gawker title. The site’s existing writers will leave, to be replaced by other Gawker writers and a new hire.

Read More »

Some Web optimists dream of a day when citizen journalists armed with cellphones, blogs and Twitter accounts will step in for Big Media. But who’s going to spend many months and lot of money tracking down a single story about a doped-up baseball player–let alone stuff that really matters?

Read More »

And they say bloggers don’t work! I had to get off my sickbed today to call David Karp, the CEO of Tumblr, and ask him if he really was in talks to sell his company to Yahoo, as Gawker/Valleywag reported. For the record, Karp says the report is “categorically untrue.”

Read More »

Gawker Media’s Nick Denton continues to shrink his blog empire: He has sold off Consumerist.com to Consumers Union, the nonprofit that publishes Consumer Reports. And he is in talks to sell Defamer.com.

Read More »

The New York Times has a staff big enough to verify the authenticity of every letter to the editor. But it still got hoodwinked by someone pretending to be the mayor of Paris.

Read More »

What if Apple had made the first iPhone in 1983? What if you could turn a Nintendo controller into a bong? What would a 103-inch TV look like? Theoretical questions no longer. At least for people who visit New York’s Lower East Side for the next few days. That’s where Gizmodo, Gawker Media’s crazily successful gadget blog, has set up a gallery of odd, cool, and awesome stuff.

Read More »

This is now clockwork: Some kind of calamity happens somewhere. Shortly after, an Internet debate breaks out about who did a better job of breaking and/or covering the story–citizen journalists/bloggers or boring old mainstream media.

But if you want to find out why the Mumbai attacks happened, or why India is seemingly beset with terror attacks, you’re out of luck no matter where you turn.

Read More »

For the last year and a half, New York Times columnist Marci Alboher wrote about other people’s jobs. Yesterday, she wrote about her own–the one she no longer has at the paper. Since she was a contractor, this doesn’t count as a violation of Executive Editor Bill Keller’s “no more layoffs, we hope” kind-of pledge. But the Times is going to have a hard time keeping its existing payroll intact.

Read More »

The Gawker Media boss puts his Consumerist site up for sale and folds his Valleywag tech gossip site into his flagship Gawker gossip site. More moves to come. In fact, it wouldn’t be Denton if there were not more moves to come.

Read More »

One advantage of blogging for a big-time publication: You can turn your pink slip into a post. That’s what Portfolio magazine’s Kevin Maney tried to do last Friday, when he announced that as part of the cutbacks at Condé Nast, he’d no longer be writing his Tech Observer blog. By Monday, Maney’s post had disappeared. Fortunately, we’ve got the full text right here. Unfortunately, we’re going to be reading many more goodbye posts in the months to come.

Read More »