Economic times being what they are, Gawker must refocus its efforts on its most commercially successful blogs. Which means, yes, The Consumerist is for sale.
We seek a new home where our kickass blogging team can continue to thrive and grow. We get 14m+ pageviews according to Sitemeter, and 2m+ uniques according to Quantcast. Direct inquiries to gaby@gawker.com.
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Game over. It’s been nice knowing you, Gawker. Maybe someday in the future I’ll give what survives of you a second thought.
RIP Consumerist.
Posts in this thread are typical of whiney Consumerist readers.
- We don’t like ads.
- You should operate at a loss.
- Good bye Gawker, I’m taking my non-revenue page-views elsewhere.
There’s no way to pay the bills with this lot. Whoever picks up Consumerist will have to re-invent it.
Thanks Gawker. It’s been a great ride but good luck selling it after this thread.
@MrsLopsided: No, if you’d actually read instead of generalize, you’d see they say its a loss-leader. This part of Gawker runs at a loss, but it attracts people to the other parts of Gawker. So losing it would be a net loss. Even if it does not generate direct revenue per se it still adds credibility to Gawker, which in general lacks it somewhat.
For example, the PS3 runs at a loss for Sony, but they continue to sell it because they make more money from the game sales that accompany it, than they lose from selling the unit at a loss.
Try and take economics 101 before you complain about other readers who know more about basic economic theory than you do.
@Valhawk:
Posters speculate that Consumerist is a loss-leader that results in a net gain to Gawker. Apparently Gawker has numbers that show a net loss. The expense is not worth the return. Theory meets reality.
Gawker kills off the sites I like; I miss Sploid, and soon I’ll be missing Consumerist, to a much larger degree.
This news should have been posted under the heading, “Sad.”
I would contribute a yearly fee to keep you guys going.
What are your needs? I think you guys could get paying subscribers.
Okay, so all this good information that has been given here – we’ll lose it all. What a job it would be to go back and try to save it all. I was depending on Consumerist to do that!
Bill Mahrer (sp?) got cancelled and found a new home. He wasn’t all that popular because of his views and he was out spoken. Maybe Ben can keep up his media appearances and find new sponsors like Bill.
224+ pages of comments? Is this not proof enough of the love this site gets?
Anyway, I doubt my comment gets seen under this pile, but I have a suggestion:
Most – if not all – local newspapers, news radio and television stations have a consumer advocacy function, like a “Action Brown” type individual who looks into consumer problems and complaints.
There’s a dichotomy for these guys: you need eyeballs to get leverage over the companies you’re investigating, but your local audience is limited in that respect. Often, the threat of a newscast appearance is enough to motivate bad companies, but sometimes it’s just not enough.
I suggest that Consumerist become a media service, where support and stories can be generated from local media sources (in a way, much like it is today) so that the eyeballs for local stories can reach larger audiences. Moderation for top-level and front page presence will help ensure that the site remains relevant.
Financial support from the news media organizations/advertising revenues increasing thru increased media attention would help keep the site afloat.
That banner is a little like a funeral notice. I suspect that most readers who see it will be turned off and stop coming back.
God damn this is the saddest news ever.
I hope denton is paying you per click-through on this post Ben. It’ll be some chunk of severance
Alexa has flaws but shows a decline in Consumerist traffic since June. Click on “max” for a 10 month trend.
[www.alexa.com]
what about turning it into a co-operative, or a corporation…where shares are offered, and we could each own a share of consumerist?
How long till Consumerist.com shows up on its own Morning Deals?
My timing, as usual, sucks. I just discovered the Consumerist and it is being sold. Really, it’s not my fault! Seriously, what does this say about the future of blogs and the viability of the free content paid by advertising business model? Even the big brands (Facebook) have not been able to monetize free content. Is it because of the economy and will pass when (if) the economy improves or is it something systemic? Either way, bad news for fans of good, free content and especially fans of Consumerist.
What if we passed a hat?
Fuck the consumerist. You all are a bunch of fascist assholes. Ever since you hired that bitch Roz to ban all the non-comformists this place has been on a decline. I used to like this place, bring back Joel.