Gawker's Elizabeth Spiers: first-ever bidding war for a blogger?. Item! The blogosphere is all aflutter.
(1) Elizabeth Spiers, "snark queen" editor of Nick Denton's Gawker blog is said to be on (insert Dr. Evil air-quotes) vacation (/air quotes). Jeff Jarvis says:
She has been hanging around New York magazine, getting a co-byline on the Intelligencer this
week (imagine if you could hear her voice there -- it'd be better than
a return to the good old days of the column that really started smart
local gossip). She has also been called by various magazines, even
Conde Nast magazines (yes, even that one), to freelance.
What makes this notable is that Elizabeth is the first media star
really made by weblogs. Others have become stars in their own rights
(Glenn, Andrew, et al) but Liz is the first to be making the jump from
niche to mass media; she is our Judd sister. Nick Denton discovered her
voice on a weblog and together they made Gawker a hit and now she's
getting ready to move on up to the East Side. Choire Sicha has been filling in.
Greg Lindsay from WWD
dishes more speculation, Gawker
weighs in here, and there's a statement on Elizabeth's personal blog
here. You still with me? Good.
(2) Jason McCabe Calacanis, serial entrepreneur behind tech publications including Silicon Alley Reporter and Venture Reporter (disclaimer: I'm the former VP of the publishing company he founded, behind both magazines) has been quietly planning to launch his Next Big Thing later this month:
a venture that has something to do with B2B weblogs for profit, and
creating viable economic micropublishing models for bloggers. If it
takes off as planned, someone close to the venture says, Calacanis will
have spawned 500 of these sites in three years' time.
(3) Calacanis launched a bidding war for Spiers today, offering
her 50% of a new publication product she would edit, a new laptop,
paying for her Soho house membership and funding. Can Nick Denton -- or
any of Spiers' rumored print suitors-- top that?
Talk amongst yourselves [Boing Boing Blog]
