Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I keep seeing references to this, but have no idea what is going on.

So for a variety of reasons, the Gizmodo group has been moving around from owner to owner for the last few years. In 2016, Univision bought it after Gwaker was taken out with a $120 million invasion of privacy judgment by Hulk Hogan (funded by Peter Thiel)

For whatever reason Univision sold off the Gizmodo Media Group (and The Onion) to a hedge fund out of Boston called Grant Hill Partners earlier this year. Gizmodo Media Group and the Onion were rolled into G/O Media, and included Gizmodo, io9, Jezebel, the Root, Jalopnik, Deadspin, Kotku, the AV Club, the Onion, and some others that I'm not remembering.

Grant Hill Partners hired Jim Spanfeller, whose previous claim to fame was turning Forbes into a clickbait site, to run the show. Being journalists, Deadspin wrote an article on how things were run now.

Oh, and important, the writers unionized a few years back.

In August, the Deadspin Editor Megan Greenwell quit, citing a lot of problems including the disagreement about editorial decisions and "non-sports" posts. At some point in the last few weeks, they killed The Splinter, which was the politics oriented publication.

In the last week or so, all sites across the platform have been featuring really annoying autoplay ads WITH SOUND, to the point that each site posted a "sorry about the ads, we don't have anything to do with them, here's the email address to complain." I'd link to those posts, but they were taken down. The Union, though, helpfully posted the content on Twitter. (The Union disputes that the posts were taken appropriately.)

On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that new management sent another "just stick to sports' memo to the staff at Deadspin.

Going back, Deadspin has, yes, primarily been a sports blog, but it's been a lot more too. There are traditions, like posting about bears on Fridays or delving into observations that the readership would like. Zapruder type analysis of absurd videos. Random shit. Non-sports stuff doesn't dominate, but it is and always has been part of Deadspin. And most importantly, that shit gets good traffic, especially in slow times of the year when the only people who care about the latest Oriel vs. Blue Jays game were probably at the game.

It's developed a pretty good commentariat that has been there for years.
Due to assholes being assholes on Jezebel many years ago, regular commentors are vetted before their posts are allowed through. Random accounts' comments are "greyed" You have to click extra to see them, and mods and admins and other readers have to actively bring those comments to the regular views.

So going back, on Tuesday, in response to the memo, not a single article posted was directly sports related. TONS of comments came in. And on Tuesday afternoon, the interim editor of Deadspin was fired for not sticking to sports.

The comment threads and Twitter erupted. Not a single article was posted after around noon that day.

Yesterday, the comments were turned off across the entire G/O Media landscape, and the Wall Street Journal got to the bottom of the stupid autoplay ads:

G/O Media Inc., which publishes former Gawker Media sites including Deadspin and Gizmodo, began running sound-on autoplay ads to boost the impressions it could deliver for Farmers Insurance Group, according to people familiar with the situation.

Editorial staffers pushed back, arguing in Slack messages to company executives and in a public post on the company’s websites that the practice creates a poor site experience that can drive users away. Management later took the post down.

A G/O Media spokesman said the autoplay ads test has been running in front of 6% of its users.

The Farmers deal, which began last month and is worth $1 million, required G/O Media to deliver nearly 43.5 million ad impressions through September 2020, according to internal G/O Media emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The publisher’s media and ad operations teams believed it was unlikely G/O Media could deliver that many, according to the emails.

After failing to hit ad impression targets within the first few weeks of the campaign, G/O Media decided to start playing videos with the sound on as soon as pages loaded, according to people familiar with the matter. That included stand-alone video ads for Farmers inside article pages as well as preroll ads before editorial videos.

The ads are no longer playing on the site, and as far as I understand it, Farmers has pulled the campaign.

Everyone I've read says that a) Deadspin was a pretty profitable site, b) the engagement numbers (which are helpfully next to every single post on the site) are very good for the "non-sports" stories as they are for the pure sports stories, if not better, and c) this is the stupidest way a company got tanked ever.

So yesterday and today, there have been mass resignations on fucking principle, which in this day and age is a pretty rare thing. I've counted well over a dozen. Some stories have hit the site since Tuesday, but a lot of them were filed before this brohuhaha began. Drew Magery today was a pretty major hit. Diana Moskovitz (click on any of those articles you'll just be amazed at her writing) was the loss that hit me the hardest.

To review: they managed to piss off their writers, their readers, and their advertisers in one fell swoop by killing a product that wasn't at all in any trouble.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

So for a variety of reasons, the Gizmodo group has been moving around from owner to owner for the last few years. In 2016, Univision bought it after Gwaker was taken out with a $120 million invasion of privacy judgment by Hulk Hogan (funded by Peter Thiel)

For whatever reason Univision sold off the Gizmodo Media Group (and The Onion) to a hedge fund out of Boston called Grant Hill Partners earlier this year. Gizmodo Media Group and the Onion were rolled into G/O Media, and included Gizmodo, io9, Jezebel, the Root, Jalopnik, Deadspin, Kotku, the AV Club, the Onion, and some others that I'm not remembering.

Grant Hill Partners hired Jim Spanfeller, whose previous claim to fame was turning Forbes into a clickbait site, to run the show. Being journalists, Deadspin wrote an article on how things were run now.

Oh, and important, the writers unionized a few years back.

In August, the Deadspin Editor Megan Greenwell quit, citing a lot of problems including the disagreement about editorial decisions and "non-sports" posts. At some point in the last few weeks, they killed The Splinter, which was the politics oriented publication.

In the last week or so, all sites across the platform have been featuring really annoying autoplay ads WITH SOUND, to the point that each site posted a "sorry about the ads, we don't have anything to do with them, here's the email address to complain." I'd link to those posts, but they were taken down. The Union, though, helpfully posted the content on Twitter. (The Union disputes that the posts were taken appropriately.)

On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that new management sent another "just stick to sports' memo to the staff at Deadspin.

Going back, Deadspin has, yes, primarily been a sports blog, but it's been a lot more too. There are traditions, like posting about bears on Fridays or delving into observations that the readership would like. Zapruder type analysis of absurd videos. Random shit. Non-sports stuff doesn't dominate, but it is and always has been part of Deadspin. And most importantly, that shit gets good traffic, especially in slow times of the year when the only people who care about the latest Oriel vs. Blue Jays game were probably at the game.

It's developed a pretty good commentariat that has been there for years.
Due to assholes being assholes on Jezebel many years ago, regular commentors are vetted before their posts are allowed through. Random accounts' comments are "greyed" You have to click extra to see them, and mods and admins and other readers have to actively bring those comments to the regular views.

So going back, on Tuesday, in response to the memo, not a single article posted was directly sports related. TONS of comments came in. And on Tuesday afternoon, the interim editor of Deadspin was fired for not sticking to sports.

The comment threads and Twitter erupted. Not a single article was posted after around noon that day.

Yesterday, the comments were turned off across the entire G/O Media landscape, and the Wall Street Journal got to the bottom of the stupid autoplay ads:



The ads are no longer playing on the site, and as far as I understand it, Farmers has pulled the campaign.

Everyone I've read says that a) Deadspin was a pretty profitable site, b) the engagement numbers (which are helpfully next to every single post on the site) are very good for the "non-sports" stories as they are for the pure sports stories, if not better, and c) this is the stupidest way a company got tanked ever.

So yesterday and today, there have been mass resignations on fucking principle, which in this day and age is a pretty rare thing. I've counted well over a dozen. Some stories have hit the site since Tuesday, but a lot of them were filed before this brohuhaha began. Drew Magery today was a pretty major hit. Diana Moskovitz (click on any of those articles you'll just be amazed at her writing) was the loss that hit me the hardest.

To review: they managed to piss off their writers, their readers, and their advertisers in one fell swoop by killing a product that wasn't at all in any trouble.

been there, seen that

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

So for a variety of reasons, the Gizmodo group has been moving around from owner to owner for the last few years. In 2016, Univision bought it after Gwaker was taken out with a $120 million invasion of privacy judgment by Hulk Hogan (funded by Peter Thiel)

For whatever reason Univision sold off the Gizmodo Media Group (and The Onion) to a hedge fund out of Boston called Grant Hill Partners earlier this year. Gizmodo Media Group and the Onion were rolled into G/O Media, and included Gizmodo, io9, Jezebel, the Root, Jalopnik, Deadspin, Kotku, the AV Club, the Onion, and some others that I'm not remembering.

Grant Hill Partners hired Jim Spanfeller, whose previous claim to fame was turning Forbes into a clickbait site, to run the show. Being journalists, Deadspin wrote an article on how things were run now.

Oh, and important, the writers unionized a few years back.

In August, the Deadspin Editor Megan Greenwell quit, citing a lot of problems including the disagreement about editorial decisions and "non-sports" posts. At some point in the last few weeks, they killed The Splinter, which was the politics oriented publication.

In the last week or so, all sites across the platform have been featuring really annoying autoplay ads WITH SOUND, to the point that each site posted a "sorry about the ads, we don't have anything to do with them, here's the email address to complain." I'd link to those posts, but they were taken down. The Union, though, helpfully posted the content on Twitter. (The Union disputes that the posts were taken appropriately.)

On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that new management sent another "just stick to sports' memo to the staff at Deadspin.

Going back, Deadspin has, yes, primarily been a sports blog, but it's been a lot more too. There are traditions, like posting about bears on Fridays or delving into observations that the readership would like. Zapruder type analysis of absurd videos. Random shit. Non-sports stuff doesn't dominate, but it is and always has been part of Deadspin. And most importantly, that shit gets good traffic, especially in slow times of the year when the only people who care about the latest Oriel vs. Blue Jays game were probably at the game.

It's developed a pretty good commentariat that has been there for years.
Due to assholes being assholes on Jezebel many years ago, regular commentors are vetted before their posts are allowed through. Random accounts' comments are "greyed" You have to click extra to see them, and mods and admins and other readers have to actively bring those comments to the regular views.

So going back, on Tuesday, in response to the memo, not a single article posted was directly sports related. TONS of comments came in. And on Tuesday afternoon, the interim editor of Deadspin was fired for not sticking to sports.

The comment threads and Twitter erupted. Not a single article was posted after around noon that day.

Yesterday, the comments were turned off across the entire G/O Media landscape, and the Wall Street Journal got to the bottom of the stupid autoplay ads:



The ads are no longer playing on the site, and as far as I understand it, Farmers has pulled the campaign.

Everyone I've read says that a) Deadspin was a pretty profitable site, b) the engagement numbers (which are helpfully next to every single post on the site) are very good for the "non-sports" stories as they are for the pure sports stories, if not better, and c) this is the stupidest way a company got tanked ever.

So yesterday and today, there have been mass resignations on fucking principle, which in this day and age is a pretty rare thing. I've counted well over a dozen. Some stories have hit the site since Tuesday, but a lot of them were filed before this brohuhaha began. Drew Magery today was a pretty major hit. Diana Moskovitz (click on any of those articles you'll just be amazed at her writing) was the loss that hit me the hardest.

To review: they managed to piss off their writers, their readers, and their advertisers in one fell swoop by killing a product that wasn't at all in any trouble.

Supporters of private equity often argue it makes companies leaner and better equipped to focus on their core businesses. In some instances, this can be true.

But as frequently, if not more frequently, particularly with creative companies, it puts bean counters and fungible corporate drones in charge, who ruin the business.

You often see the damage in the form of cost-cutting and thoughtless efforts to create efficiencies by having employees wear numerous new hats while other employees are (somewhat randomly) terminated. Or there's "fun with numbers" employed, in which the company starts booking things in a manner designed to inflate profit and justify borrowing, the funds from which the new owners divert into their own pockets, in an effort to flip the business within 5 years. This was Romney's model at Bain, along with keeping "binders of women," wholesome "job creator" he was...

Deadspin looks like a straight up fuck-up -- larding up a lean property with unqualified c-suite management and then alienating labor in a manner shocking even for PE people.

I heard years ago that the age of the MBA was coming to a close. It seems an agonizingly slow process.

Re Gawker, Thiel is the Asperger's Gatsby of the moment -- hottest dinner party in town.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm not debating with you. I'm sure there are voters like what you describe. You just have an odd fixation on that particular constellation of views, and they shine much brighter in your firmament. Just a coincidence that their views so resemble your own? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

That's simple: You underestimate or discount them. Much like we all underestimated and discounted the shy Trump voter. (I know Hank. It is noted that you did not.)

I think, relatedly, you also tend to post things that view facts as you want them to be rather than as they are. To discuss what's going to happen in 2020, it has to be looked at as a horse race. To discuss the media, and why people are ignoring it, you have to look at the rare voices like Taibbi, who are explaining why the narratives the media used to be able to turn into consensus are failing. (Because people rightly don't trust our factionalized media.)

I also think you, and I don't mean you alone here, tend to bristle at the suggestion that the cynical or self-interested voter is of the most importance. This, again, is a desire to see a country different than the country we have. The "moderate" R and D are rather similar if you put them in a position where they have to choose between a noxious social agenda and a performing economy with low taxes (Trump) or a noble progressive social agenda and a questionable economy and high taxes (Warren or Bernie). Many if not most will vote in a ruthlessly pragmatic manner. I cited the Biden voter as a cake-and-eat-it sort because that's what he is. I know him. I meet him every day. He's my entire social scene. He's quick to tell you he detests Trump, but is really scared of Warren or Bernie. And if forced to choose between his country and his family’s finances, well...

He's quite real, and he's legion. That he happens to resemble me isn't coincidence. I'm a pretty common animal. You may not like that, but citing facts and stories that carve around that, or stupidly asserting I'm writing shit, doesn't change that. And you know it.

ETA: One other thing I think you discount is the public's interest in this impeachment. I suspect you find Trump's abuse of power odious. A number of people do. But a much larger number expects this sort of thing from politicians. Reagan had Iran/Contra, the Clintons were eternally in some form of mud (often unfairly, but still in the muck), Cheney lied about almost everything. Obama and Bush I were generally honest, but Bush I was labeled a liar for "no new taxes" and Obama was mired with endless right wing attacks (the Lois Lerner IRS investigation, the ACA knocking some people off their health care, as he claimed it wouldn't, the Holder Doctrine) which, fair or not, gave off the impression he was not above "Chicago politics." I don't think people are terribly surprised to find their Presidents make Faustian bargains and engage in shady behavior. I think they think that's just part of how the sausage is made. You might be projecting your views on a broader population that is not comprised of lawyers who hold a reverence for the letter of the law. Most people just want jobs and a future. They don't care about what's going on in Ukraine. They turn off the channel when they hear about Trump. And they turn it off when they hear people complaining about Trump.

This is why Bernie and Warren are getting traction: They talk jobs and the economy. Every R in Congress felt emboldened to vote no on impeachment yesterday. And that'll be nearly repeated in the Senate, regardless of what comes out in the hearings Schiff is planning. So yeah, I like talking about moderates. Because you ignore them at your party's peril.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I don’t read it but it sounds like management wanted to keep a sports blog limited to sports?

When Peter Thiel won his libel suit, Deadspin and other Gawker sites were sold to a private equity company, which brought in new management. The people they choose seem to have expertise in clickbait and other trickery to inflate page hit numbers for advertisers, but not in any skills that would help them run a place like Deadspin. They have been running off the people there, intentionally and unintentionally, and things have come to a head this week. Deadspin was never a sports blog limited to sports, so telling the writers to "stick to sports" seemed more about the comfort-level of the new management than a sound business idea.

eta: stp -- RT tells it much better

eata: the politics stuff often was more profitable than the sports

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

To discuss what's going to happen in 2020, it has to be looked at as a horse race.

No. That's your preference. For example, here's an awesome article by Olivia Nuzzi about Joe Biden that is not horserace journalism.

I also think you, and I don't mean you alone here, tend to bristle at the suggestion that the cynical or self-interested voter is of the most importance.

I have been an antitrust lawyer for a long time -- I have no problem assuming that people act out of self-interest. It's more that I bristle at your cynicism. And you're not cynical about everything, so when you choose to be cynical it's your choice, not a fact of nature.

I'm a pretty common animal.

Whether or not it's true -- and I'm sure it's true in some ways, and not in others -- you have a need to keep saying this that I don't share. Which is the point I was making a couple of posts ago. I have my own irritating tics, I'm sure -- one of yours is projection.

ETA: One other thing I think you discount is the public's interest in this impeachment.

For a fairly smart guy, you attribute a lot of things to me that I haven't said and don't think. It's a little maddening. I say a lot of stuff here, obviously, and the technology makes it super-easy to just quote me and respond to what I actually have said. Why don't you try that instead? I think what you're trying to say here is the opposite -- that the public is not as interested in impeachment as I think it is. But I have no idea what you're responding to.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

For a fairly smart guy, you attribute a lot of things to me that I haven't said and don't think. It's a little maddening. I say a lot of stuff here, obviously, and the technology makes it super-easy to just quote me and respond to what I actually have said. Why don't you try that instead? I think what you're trying to say here is the opposite -- that the public is not as interested in impeachment as I think it is. But I have no idea what you're responding to.

I started that out with the caveat “I think.” If I thought what I wrote incorrectly, then you are free to disregard the comment or tell me I am wrong, as you have here. That’s fine.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I started that out with the caveat “I think.” If I thought what I wrote incorrectly, then you are free to disregard the comment or tell me I am wrong, as you have here. That’s fine.

OK. Not sure why you think that. I would imagine it's prompted by something I wrote here, but I'm not sure what.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

To review: they managed to piss off their writers, their readers, and their advertisers in one fell swoop by killing a product that wasn't at all in any trouble.

Hey, if these guys are looking for another company after killing this one, I bet my former law firm would be a good match for them.

And thanks for filling me in. Appreciate it.

[Adder]

Relevant to past economic discussions:

Source: https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/st...064967680?s=20

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

To review: they managed to piss off their writers, their readers, and their advertisers in one fell swoop by killing a product that wasn't at all in any trouble.

Deadspill (typo but I left it) was not something that any twenty-something would look at as anything other than a goof. Some good writers, for sure, but it had a pulse of like 38 and bp of 60/20.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Says here that Deadspin no longer has any editors or writers. So that management team has really done a brilliant job with that asset.

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Deadspill (typo but I left it) was not something that any twenty-something would look at as anything other than a goof. Some good writers, for sure, but it had a pulse of like 38 and bp of 60/20.

I believe it was profitable, but I wouldn't invest in it now.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

ICYMI (I did): An update on offshoring alarmism.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Says here that Deadspin no longer has any editors or writers. So that management team has really done a brilliant job with that asset.



I believe it was profitable, but I wouldn't invest in it now.

Sorry, I'd give my credit card number to Bernie Madoff, in jail before I paid a dime to these suckers or their advertisers.

Behold this ode to cluelessness

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

ICYMI (I did): An update on offshoring alarmism.

Related: Robots are also not taking all of the jobs. If they were, productivity growth would be accelerating, rather than sluggish/declining.