The Mystery Behind Gawker's Commenters
[Graph of Number of Gawker Comments on Monthly Basis via their Flickr]
Red Line= # of Active Commenter Accounts
Blue Line= # of Comments made
Many of you probably have already heard about CommentGate, the revelation by Jakob Lodwick via a posted IM conversation with Nick Denton. In it we learn that the majority of comments on Gawker are actually written by interns. This may come as a surprise, or it may not. Nonetheless, much of the color in Gawker posts are from the comments, making it a pretty brilliant move by Denton if it is in fact true. He has in effect caused a paradigm shift in blogging, making the comments as important, and in some cases, usurp the relevance of the very post that initiated the discussion.
So is this true? Well, as an astute Gothamist commentor Jake Dobkin points out on Gothamist's post on the issue, Gawker had 350,000 commentors this past month (blue line of graph). So supposing there are 10,000 commentors registered for Gawker (the red line of graph), this would mean an average of 35 comments per person. Hmmm...that doesn't sound right, since we all know from Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point that 20% of the population does 80% of the work, making the average comments for the majority of accounts much less than 35.
So in reality, roughly 2,000 commenters SHOULD BE doing 80% of the work, i.e. responsible for 280,000 comments, creating an average of 140 comments per person in this subgroup. While possible, and not completely off the chart, its unlikely.
It seems most likely that a bunch of interns are in fact doing heaps and heaps of comments from a bunch of accounts. And seriously, does HONJUDGESMAILS, FAMEBALL, BETTY CROCKER, HONJUDGESMAILS2, and MISTERHIPPITY have f*king jobs? How the hell do they spend so much time on Gawker? Oh wait...they're interns!
Either way, we still enjoy reading them for now.
Vassili Verrecchia Shows Off His Favorite Things In His Paris Home
While his brother, Timothee, runs the NYC office, Vassili takes on the Paris-based side of things. To gain some insight to what inspires such a creative and entrepreneurial spirit, we asked Vass to show off some of his favorite worldly and sentimental possessions in his Paris home. See where Vass's travels have taken him...
about 12 hours ago
about 16 hours ago
about 17 hours ago
about 17 hours ago
02:56:54 PM May 21, 2012
02:35:16 PM May 21, 2012
11:01:39 AM May 18, 2012
09:45:07 AM May 18, 2012
10:17:44 AM May 17, 2012
Nick, not ted
January 24, 2008
7:26pm
"While possible, and not completely off the chart, its unlikely." If you spend any time in the commenting section of even the most mundane Gawker posts, you'll see that the same 50 commenters are writing back and forth to each other. All day. Every day. Take, for example, the record of CodePink: [gawker.com] There's already 5 or so comments from him/her today, and its only 2pm. Are we really having this conversation? Is it too much to believe that there is a sizable community of people that like to hear themselves think (..er type)?
guestofaguest
January 24, 2008
7:38pm
Just think of what they could really accomplish with all of that extra time on their hands.....
Stanley Stuyvesant
January 24, 2008
7:47pm
Yes, it its entirely plausible that there is a community of Gawker interns that like to hear themselves think (..er type).
Stanley Stuyvesant
January 24, 2008
7:52pm
@Nick, not Ted; Well in theory its a continuation of your initial conversation with Jakob, no?
ish
January 24, 2008
7:52pm
No mystery. Denton was fucking with Lodwick. Be serious.
Nick, not ted
January 24, 2008
8:23pm
@ish, thank you.
Ha Ha Sound
January 24, 2008
9:31pm
Bring back Tionna!! Thank you.