If you weren’t one of the 28 people watching the World Series this year, you might have missed the fact that the St. Louis Cardinals took out the heavily-favored Detroit Tigers in five games.
Prior to the kickoff of the lowest-rated televised World Series in the history of little Nielsen boxes, a bet was consummated between Gawker’s Alex Balk (a Tigers fan) and Deadspin’s Will Leitch (a Cards fan) with simple terms — loser has to cover the winner’s blogging duties for a day.
Seeing as Gawker’s a 2-3 man operation, and Leitch is pretty much a one man show (apologies to Rick Chandler and the bevy of regular guest contributors), the terms may not have been totally fair. But what’s done is done, and today is payday — so sports fans and New York gossipistas alike can head over to Deadspin and enjoy a healthy Halloween mix of gay jokes and more gay jokes, with the occasional sports mention, if time permits.
Idolator is reporting that Scott Lapatine’s Stereogum will be receiving investment dollars from the Pilot Group, the investment group headed by former AOL head Bob Pittman. The Pilot Group, you may remember, also purchased the daily newsletter network Daily Candy back in 2003 (for something in the neighborhood of $2-3 million).
No public confirmation of the report from anyone at Stereogum yet, or any insight into the exact dollar amounts involved. But based on Pittman and the Pilot Group’s track record, Idolator speculates that Pilot will look to build Stereogum’s revenue and audience before packaging the site for a sale to another media company, possibly Wenner Media (publishers of RollingStone).
UPDATE: Rafat Ali confirms it. Investment from Pilot Group and former MTVN digital head Jason Hirschorn.
As our reader(s) have so graciously pointed out, while we were enjoying our usual Monday slack fiesta del cha cha, Ze Frank questioned Rocketboom’s user statistics on The Show:
This morning (well, actually it could have been at any time, since somebody doesn’t bother to label their posts with a date or timestamp), we get the inevitable response from the Rocketboom camp (courtesy of founder/producer Andrew Baron).
Frank’s got a few inches in reach and a sizable weight advantage — we’re putting our money on Ze (by TKO in the 3rd).
We’ve seen plenty of blogs throw plenty of parties, especially with the way blog networks have been receiving funding of late. But as far as we know, nobody’s ever topped what Philebrity has on tap this weekend.
Dubbed the Philebrity Weekender, Vol. II, this party promises to be off. the. hook. Starting tomorrow October 12 and running thru October 15, it features multiple bands playing gigs at various locations around the city.
If we were in Philadelphia, or anywhere close to it, we’d be out in force to witness this blogstravaganza. Alas, we’re bound to the Pacific this weekend — so if anyone makes it to any portion of this one, be sure to send us along photos, drunken YouTube videos, etc.
OK, so this really isn’t blog related but, who cares? Anyway, in case you have been living under a rock or you’re just slow, you probably heard that Google bought YouTube, the new tube on the block for that ridiculous sum in the title of this post. Why?
Well, many reasons. Google thought that if they owned youtube they will gain its community. This will probably happen, and this community will hopefully start using all the other Google-owned services. If this happens Google will have a chance of escaping from (insert competitor here) shadow.
Google probably also wanted to improve upon, or replace their own video service, and who better to do this with than the leader.
I’m going to stop here before this becomes a Valleywag post, and because writing on a Nokia 770 is hard (I still love you Nokia). I will continue this unfinished thought on a later date, and maybe on a different blog…
In this corner, Joey Sweeney and Philebrity, the blog that invented the concept of putting -ebrity at the end of a word to make an awkward portmanteau (and commonly available URL).
In the other corner, Jonathan Valania and Phawker, the Matrixy black-and-green site he started after parting ways with Sweeney earlier this year over dissenting creative visions (”Yeah, mine was to not suck,” Sweeney says.) that currently blames its launch delays on Stephen Colbert. It’s always that fucking Colbert.
Stephen Colbert’s been put on notice by the folks at Jalopnik.
The Gawker Media automotive title is accusing Colbert of using video THEY coaxed out of GM officials on the air, and then giving them no credit.
You might remember that a month or so back, Ze Frank and a number of blogs accused Colbert of repurposing his Nobel Prize donut joke — although in fairness, the joke did seem obvious enough that a paid comedy writing staff could have conceivably come up with it first/as well.
This second allegation of Colbert treating the blogosphere like much of the blogosphere treats “big” media — borrowing content without proper attribution — may have some merit, seeing as it’s an actual media clip (that Jalopnik seemed to have as an exclusive), and not just a somewhat obvious joke.
However, before we work ourselves into a Creative Commonsy lather, we can’t help but think Colbert’s people may have just contacted GM to get the video themselves. Let’s face it — if the Jalopnik could coax video out of the General Motors’ PR folks, chances are Colbert & Co. wouldn’t have too much trouble getting the same video.
Whatever the case, best of luck to the Jalopnik folks on getting a Colbert Report mention. If his audience is active enough to help him beat Chuck Norris in an online vote, we’re betting they’ll bring some pretty significant traffic. Maybe even enough to help them catch their Weblogs, Inc. nemesis Autoblog.
Starting a new regular (e.g. once every six months) feature today — you’re always asking for tips on how to make the A-list, well we’re going to start calling them out as we see them. Trendspotting for the A-list, if you will. And in case you’re slow on the uptake, we’re calling it All the Cool Kids Are Doing It.
Today’s virgin entry is Cartoon Mascots for regular features on your blog. Extra points for cartoons that look exactly like the Christoph Niemann-drawn mascot for Randy Cohen’s The Ethicist column from the New York Times.
UPDATE: Fred Wilson chimes in, questioning the ethics of using a graphic that’s almost identical to that of the very column you’re aping.
Stephen Colbert’s been put on notice by the folks at Jalopnik.
