Here’s a guy who managed to spend his entire life savings—$2,600—on a failed attempt to win a $300 Xbox Kinect during a carnival game. ”For once in my life, I happened to become that sucker,” said the man, in the understatement of the year. At least he won a banana with dreadlocks. (ht Gawker)
Yo Nick: We know you have servers and history and traffic and all that other crud, but your network of sites is so perfect for Tumblr that it will be like sucking the life out of the room when your server rack gets put back together and you return to the internet in your scrolly, advertisey, comment-mess-withy form. Obviously this was a necessary backup — and we understand if you don’t choose to stay, and glad that your staff is doing OK enough after the hurricane that you’re keeping the content flowing — but this is such a good fit for your style of writing that it actually feels like you’ve been running a Tumblr on here for five years as opposed to twelve hours. Here, we’ll even make a deal: When Adrian Chen decides to unmask a creepy dude from Reddit again, just put a jump on it! We’ll all click!
And for Tumblr, let’s make the inverted argument: Gawker and Buzzfeed could have taken their sites to Angelfire or Xoom, but they chose Tumblr. Doesn’t this scream opportunity? There are some great sites on Tumblr already — but there could be some next-level people-doing-it-for-a-living types on here (including the aforementioned) if you worked on your monetization strategy a little more and thought about how to get publishers a little help.
Basically, what we’re saying is that this format is perfect for you, Gawker, even though this is a backup pair of white denim jeans because you spilled pomegranate juice on your other pair. Just a thought.
Datagram, the ISP whose Manhattan servers host BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Gawker, and other sites, has lost power, an official there told us via text this evening.
“Basement flooded, fuel pump off line - we got people working on it now. 5 feet of water now,” the official wrote.
BuzzFeed’s site and story page are back online, thanks to a Content Delivery Network, Akamai, which hosts the content at servers distributed around the world.
FIVE FEET OF WATER took down three of the biggest new-media sites on the internet. At the same time. Think about how crazy that is.
lead-andjelly says: Is there a reason you don’t actually, y’know, use his name?
» SFB says: Because we want people to actually click the links and read the full story. The link was a “teaser.” — Ernie @ SFB
Under Reddit logic, outing Violentacrez is worse than anonymously posting creepshots of innocent women, because doing so would undermine Reddit’s role as a safe place for people to anonymously post creepshots of innocent women.
I am OK with that.
The man who Adrian Chen targeted, Violentacrez, has tight ties to the Reddit community in good ways (he was a trusted moderator of numerous subreddits, including some of the big ones) and unspeakable ones (one of the channels he moderated/created was a “jailbait” channel, and another he moderated was “Creepshots,” which was pretty creepy, as you might guess). Crazy stuff.
![Bain Capital was interested in working with Gawker financially, but the guy who reached out wasn’t aware of their previous reporting on the firm. ”I’ve been working here for like a week now,” he said. “I just thought it was a unique idea. We work with a lot of similar companies. I had no idea about the [Bain stories]. I’m not sure it would work out. This is awkward.” Yeah, it sure is, because Gawker posted the e-mail.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbp8ll2UMN1qas8z9o1_500.jpg)
Bain Capital was interested in working with Gawker financially, but the guy who reached out wasn’t aware of their previous reporting on the firm. ”I’ve been working here for like a week now,” he said. “I just thought it was a unique idea. We work with a lot of similar companies. I had no idea about the [Bain stories]. I’m not sure it would work out. This is awkward.” Yeah, it sure is, because Gawker posted the e-mail.
Presley is not the only one claiming Stetten may be telling tall tales.
When this story first began to gain traction, ShortFormBlog recommended that its readers take Stetten’s tweets “with a grain of salt,” noting her recently concluded relationship with shock jock Anthony Cumia of The Opie & Anthony Show, as well as previous tweet wherein she attempted to fool her followers into believing she had won March’s historic Mega Millions jackpot.
This is in reference to the Melissa Stetten story where she claimed that a married actor hit on her during a red-eye flight. The actor denies Stetten’s version of events.
For one thing, Bowman notes that, like a fine five-dollar bottle of artisanal water, the new bird ‘is crafted purely from three sets of overlapping circles,’ a concept which he subsequently expands into some bull about how circles are your friends where ideas are shapes and wings take dream.Gawker’s Caity Weaver • Offering a beautifully cynical take on Twitter’s new bird logo, which many see as an extremely minor change, but others think is graceful. Weaver’s mockery is focused, specifically, on creative director Doug Bowman’s overwrought blog post on the matter, but she also takes a moment to make fun of the company’s strict branding rules, which say you cannot do a bunch of things people are going to continue to do. *golf clap* Good show, Caity.
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
seltaire asks: you sparked my curiosity so much I went anyways and now I regret it. T_T never doubt shortform.
» SFB says: Again, trust us. You want to click on the cute puppies link. Don’t go to Gawker. — Ernie @ SFB
There is some bad stuff there involving a guy who was in the news over the weekend for a bizarre attack involving injuries he received to his face. You don’t want to see it. Instead, this link goes to a Getty Images search for “cute puppies.”
You spoke too soon, Rand Paul. It sounds like the President’s views on marriage just got even gayer.Gawker’s Louis Peitzman • In a piece (referencing this) about how Obama’s hoping to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act in his second term. Yes, you read that right. Let that sink in, everyone.
TechCrunch’s history since AOL bought it in 2010 has been as turbulent as the private roller coasters many Facebook employees will likely install in their Silicon Valley mansions post-IPO.Gawker’s Adrian Chen • Commenting on AOL’s reported plans to sell TechCrunch, Engadget and most of its other tech-related properties in a single package. One amazing line really says it all.
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