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Small publishers grow amid carnage

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Mar 3, 2009 

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Edward Barrera  |

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Small publishers grow amid carnage

ADOTAS — Despite loudly proclaiming doom, Nick Denton seems to be riding the economic tsunami well.

His Gawker Media, which includes Gawker, Gizmodo and Jalopnik, drew in nearly 300 million pageviews, some 34 percent over last February’s level, according to a memo at Romensko, and for the year to March, it could be fifth up over last winter. Denton said an improved comment section and the big ad units that take over the sites were some of the reasons for its success.

Small publishers such as Gawker Media are doing well, it seems, because they target niche markets and keep costs low. Start-up websites such as SB Nation, Seeking Alpha Ltd. and HealthCentral Network Inc., which create and aggregate content about topics like sports, business and health, are recording sharp gains in visitors and revenue, according to the WSJ. Some are also landing distribution partnerships with big media brands eager for cheap content during the recession.

The number of visitors to sports Web site SB Nation, for instance, rose 15 percent from December to a total of 3.4 million in January, according to the company, even as unique visitors to the category of sports sites tracked by comScore Inc. fell 2 percent. SB Nation launched a partnership with Yahoo Inc.’s Yahoo Sports last week and has signed another deal with Gannett Co.’s USA Today.

“Consumer engagement is shifting toward niche-content experiences,” Andrew Braccia, a partner at venture-capital firm Accel Partners, told the WSJ. Braccia, who sits on the board of SB Nation, added that “Three to five years from now, people will no longer be drawing a distinction between traditional forms of publishing and what we know as blogs today.”

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Tags: economy, finance, Gawker, nick-denton, recession and small-publishers

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