Denton puts Oddjack to sleep
Oddjack is dead. Denton says, “A.J. Daulerio, the editor, is a trooper, and an amusing writer, but the audience was never there.” The blog will be pulled down by the month’s end.
As of publication, Oddjack posts no acknowledgement of kaputment. But the death is public. A.J. tells Aileen Gallagher, FishBowlNY contributor and (disclaimer added later) A.J.’s roommate:
I was told about a month ago that November was the month that would ultimately determine my fate. As much as I tried to spike traffic with random posts–most of which had a tenuous gambling angle at best–it was painfully obvious that flukey traffic surges I’d get every now and again were not going to make this blog successful. The site had a very small readership that was pretty much maxed-out for whatever reason. Then yesterday Lockhart asked if we could meet to discuss this. I told him it wasn’t necessary to meet face-to-face because I had a feeling this would be the end. He IM-ed me the dire circumstances about 5 p.m. yesterday and that was that. That is how things are done in blog world, apparently. It’s very comforting.
Roll a die, flip a coin in the memory of the first Gawker Media blog to die. Then stay up all night refreshing the comment threads, waiting for A.J. to move in with Jessica and raise the kids.
This entry was posted by Nick Douglas on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 3:44 pm and is filed under A. J. Daulerio, Featured, Nick Denton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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on November 22, 2005 at 5:36 pm Chris wrote:
Too bad, was a funny site that I checked out every once in a while…
To quote “Friends”, on the ending of “Old Yeller”: “Hey, Travis, whatcha doin’ with that gun? Oh no…no, no, Travis, put down that gun. No, no, no, he’s your buddy, he’s your Yeller! No, no, THE END! THE END!” (Minus cool points for quoting a crappy TV show, yes.)
Oddjack’s not dead, it’s just retiring to the old folks’ home…
on November 22, 2005 at 10:03 pm Bunbury wrote:
So he kills a site for not having buzz (I am assuming he means good buzz) and a growing audience…
Thank god he can fall back on his tried-and-true laurels like Kinja.
And no offense to AJ, but isn’t gambling (especially poker) really popular right now? How could the site founder? That question is half rhetorical-half serious.
“Daddy? Where do blogs go when they die?”
on November 23, 2005 at 6:27 am Julio Alonso wrote:
With the blogger payment scheme that Gawker currently has, meaning fixed pay + incentives, if the blog doesn’t pay for itself after a certain time, you have to stop the losses.
On a revenue sharing scheme, the blog could go on much much longer.
on November 29, 2005 at 4:25 pm Uncle Grambo wrote:
So, um, is “trooper” British for “trouper”?
on January 1, 2006 at 10:00 pm TrojanWire wrote:
Rumors of Oddjack’s demise have been greatly exaggerated
Seems the reports (our own included) that Oddjack was toast were slightly off–while the site is no longer part of the Gawker family, it is live and still being posted to regularly. Rather than shudder the site, Gawker Media sold…