Valleywag's Paul Boutin Exposes Gawker Media Pay Scale System

Apparently upset that Gawker Media is reducing it's payments to writers, Paul Boutin has elected to expose the dark underbelly of a system that compenstates its bloggers. Here's that description in full below:

Gawker Media dark overlord Nick Denton (pictured) has launched a new pay system for all Gawker Media blogs, after testing it at four of his leading sites. Denton's goal is to discourage "self indulgent" posts and "mind-numbing frequency" in favor of "linkworthy material, by which I mean a secret memo, a spy photo, a chart, a well-argued rant, a list, an exclusive piece of news, a well-packaged find." Where does a self-indulgent secret memo fit on that axis? I guess we'll find out after the jump.

From: Noah Robischon Subject: Editor Newsletter - 2008 Preview Edition Date: December 31, 2007 11:42:12 AM PST
In January, as you've no doubt heard, Gawker editorial is introducing a new bonus system. While your base monthly pay remains the same, the chance of a bonus will depend on your individual performance. More specifically: it will depend on the popularity of your posts that month. Below, an explanation of the background to the move; why now; and how the new system works.

1. BACKGROUND

It's only on the internet that a writer's contributions can be measured. At newspapers, a reporter's reputation depends on the opinion of their editors, which can be fickle. Some people get on because they play the office politics well. Or simply because they're more aggressive in lobbying for more prominent jobs, or pay increases.

Advertising people say that the internet is special, because the audience's engagement is so much more measurable than that of newspaper readers, or television viewers. Which makes it so bizarre that most writers, on the internet as in print, are paid for the sheer brute quantity of their output.

Gawker has been equally backward. Sure, we pioneered the pageview bonus system, which rewards all writers for a site's performance. But, let's be honest: those bonuses have been allocated subjectively. And, in the large, writers have been rewarded, at $12 a post, for mind-numbing frequency. When we've paid a higher rate (the $200 "feature" rate) we've often not been rewarding better pieces; merely encouraging the padding of perfectly good, short items.

In short, we have repeated the bad habits of traditional media organizations: leaving remuneration to the arbitrary will of upper management; and, by treating words as if they were Soviet steel output targets, encouraging quantity over quality.

2. WHY NOW

Early on in the commercial blog era, frequency was the key to the success of a site: Engadget took a lead because it churned out 24 posts a day while Gizmodo, fearful of overwhelming its audience, stuck to a dainty dozen items. We learnt that lesson, and vowed never to be out-produced again. But we now really are reaching the limits of sheer volume. Readers can't take any more. And the proliferation of blogs, and social news services such as Digg, has changed the rules.

Where there was a shortage of attitude and commentary, there's now a surfeit. And what's in heavy demand, and short supply, is linkworthy material, by which I mean a secret memo, a spy photo, a chart, a well-argued rant, a list, an exclusive piece of news, a well-packaged find. Gina showed on Lifehacker, with the style of feature she pioneered a couple of years ago, that it was possible to grow a site's audience without endlessly increasing the number of posts.

Second, our objective is not merely to provide gratification for a writer, or amusement for their pals, but to appeal to the wider readership of a site, and to new readers who might discover it through Digg or Google or some other link. It's fine to pen the occasional self-indulgent or self-referential item. But we're not going to waste the editorial budget on them, when we're investing so heavily in the sites. We need a more efficient form of bonus compensation — and one that's fair to the writers who care most about their readers.

Third, the market for editorial talent is becoming more competitive. If a writer works like hell, or sparkles, we always run a risk: that somebody outside the organization notices before the news trickles up the management hierarchy. We need a mechanism to reward hard work, and stardom — to dispense pay increases automatically, if you will.

3. HOW IT WORKS

For several months now, we've displayed the number of views each item receives. It's not a perfect measure. The view count does not reflect attention paid to the posts on the front page; nor photo galleries (which are usually junk views anyhow); and it can overstate the value of cheap items with superficial appeal, but which damage a site's reputation. Nevertheless, it's the best measure we have, so we're going to use it to calculate bonuses.

From now on, you will be paid a set monthly fee. This is the total amount of money outlined in your editorial agreement or determined between you and your site lead. The era of counting posts that are worth $12 or $200 is over. You will be expected to contribute a set number of posts each month in exchange for your monthly base pay.

On top of your monthly base pay, you will be eligible for a bonus based on the number of pageviews your posts receive each month. This total includes any pageview on any story with your byline that was read during the month, even if the story is months or years old. You can track your monthly total here: (Click your site name in the rollup data section along the very top of the page).

Each site will be assigned a pageview rate, which is the dollar amount that each 1,000 pageviews on the site is worth. Although this sounds similar to an advertising CPM, this number has nothing to do with your site's revenue or advertising value. At the end of the month, if the money you earn in pageviews exceeds your monthly base pay, you will be paid the extra money as a bonus.

This chart should make it clearer. If your site has a PV rate of $5:
$2,000 = 400,000 views:
$5,000 = 1m views:
$7,000 = 1.4m views

Based on this example, if your base pay is $2,000 per month then you would need to get upwards of 400,000 pageviews to begin earning bonus. A total of 500,000 views would earn $500 bonus (or $2,500 total pay).

Your site lead will be able to tell you the pageview rate for your site, and give you a chart like this one to for calculating bonus.

For the majority of sites, there is no cap on the amount of bonus you can earn each month. Four sites are already using the new bonus system (Gawker, Wonkette, Gizmodo and Defamer). One guest editor on Wonkette landed a huge exclusive and walked away with an extra $3k in his paycheck.

-Rules Of The Road-

* The pageview rate for each site will change at the beginning of each quarter. It cannot be changed at any other time.

* This bonus will replace all other bonuses that now exist.

* Site leads do not take part in this system. They are still measured on overall site performance.

* The site lead has the right to revoke pageviews on any post. This is to guard against the publication of material that may be inappropriate or illicit, and we hope it is never necessary.

The site leads have more detailed information about all of this, and can share specific numbers for your site to give you a better sense of how your pageviews will translate into bonus.

Please send questions to so that we can round them all up and answer for everyone.

All best,
- Noah and Nick

Super Bowl XLII Oakland To Phoenix Flight Southwest Airlines

This is a video of the flight that I took from Oakland to Phoenix to attend Super Bowl XLII and the events before the game. It was a Southwest Airlines flight that left at 1:30 that day and got in at about almost 5 PM.

TechCrunch Reports That Red Envelope's Closing It's Doors

Yep. Red Envelope, which has sent a number of gifts to me, is closing down after several years of operating at the margins. Here's TechCrunch's word:

Everything up to this point is fact - what comes next is rumor: We’ve heard the company is basically laying off all of the staff and shutting down in the next few days. We have an email in to the company for comment.

Stay tuned.

Michael Irvin At Hall of Fame | One Of The Greatest NFL Speeches In History

Please listen to this speech by former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin. It's one of the greatest speeches in NFL history.

Reflections on the 40th anniversary of King's assassination

At a time when we were, ostensibly, trying to come together, it seemed the divisions had never been more pronounced. Each of us who lived through, and recalls, those times bears a certain number of wounds. The reaction to King's murder was rioting on a scale this country had never known. What started as a peaceful march for the rights of sanitation workers in Memphis became violence none could ignore.

We must not forget. For the sake of our children, we dare not.

"We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

~ Senator Barack Obama

read more | digg story

SF- BIG Panel On Digital Ad Talent - St. Regis Hotel, SF

The San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group or "SF-BIG" asked me to make this video of their "Reach" event held March 20th, 2008 at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. The topic was on what ad firms look for in digital ad talent and what advantage -- if any -- San Francisco has as a center of digital media. The panelists included Melinda Mettler (Academy of Art School of Advertising), Alyson Hyder (Avenue A | Razorfish); Bernie Albers (Federated Media); and David Greenwald, (i2iplacement). In all it was a great event and the breakfast was terrific.

iTunes Makes Apple #1 Music Retailer In U.S.A

According to ArtsTechnica.com, Apple has risen to become the number one music retailer in the United States, and all of those transactions are online - not one single money exchange was done by a cash register in an Apple store.

That's amazing. Apple has surpassed WalMart, BestBuy and another online retailer Amazon.com to reach this position. But this should firmly cement in the mind of the public the fact that online retail is not a fad and is the next wave of transactions.

But ArtsTechnica points to a "dark side" of Apple's success because many "offline" retail purchases are of high-end CD's, so Apple's success means that the overall revenue of the music industry is falling.

Factor military duty into criticism, Mr. Limbaugh. Did you volunteer, Mr. O'Reilly?

Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as Jeremiah Wright, received five (5) military service deferments, four for being a student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968.

In 1961, amid an increasingly turbulent time in this country, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," Wright gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the recently integrated U.S. Marine Corps. Remember, it was not until the spring of 1968 that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. All men may have been created equal, but in the U.S. in the 60s there was little assuring they would be afforded equal rights in most places.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?

How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not many.

While words do count, as Lawrence Korb and Ian Moss point out in the April 3rd piece in the Chicago Trib after looking into Jeremiah Wright's history, so do actions.

read more | digg story

CNN's Brianna Keilar Now Regular Anchor On CNN Morning

After what seemed to be fits and starts, Brianna Keilar, who I met at the 2005 NFL Draft and was then with MTV-U, then after an agent contacted me in late 2005 -- well, pestered me, really -- about seeing her here online at this account I wrote about Brianna Keilar at the 2005 NFL Draft, I informed her and after she responded with an approval, I gave him her then current contact information.

The result, in 2006, was that Brianna Keilar was hired by CNN, and after she really thought it was going to take years to get there. I've not got a note from her since, even as we were emailing back and forth before then in 2005 and that agent guy was really bugging me for her contact information, and even though I wrote "Congratulations! A glass of wine would be cool."

The funny thing is that we -- she and I -- were talking about the importance of relationships as a key to success, you'd think she'd have said "thanks" at least. It's not like we didn't connect after the NFL Draft.

We had a lot of people we knew in common, from Frank Sommerville and Kenny Wardell who was then at KTVU with Sommerville, and the Cal-Berkeley connection, but for some reason now that she's a "big star" she doesn't even mention Cal on CNN when she had the chance to this morning. Yikes!

Hey, Brianna, saying "GO BEARS" on CNN just once will not kill you and Cal fans will sing your praises for years after that. The point here is that once people have done something for you, don't forget to thank them. In my case, an email saying, Hey, thanks so much for sending him my way; look what happened!"

That's enough for me, really.

Regardless, I'm glad she's got on a regular schedule. She's finally comfortable behind the camera, after it seemed that she was a bit uncomfortable reading the teleprompter live.

I just wonder if she's still wearing those fishnets?

Ok, I've not wrote this before, but truth be told, she had a wicked set of legs in fishnets and all the guys in the 2995 NFL Draft gallery were going GA GA over Brianna. And if she denies this, she's telling a massive fib! She looked hot, but in the lunch room all the guys totally ignored her as if they were afraid to talk to her, so I figured I would since she was all alone.

That's how it all started.

This is Brianna's basic background:

Brianna Keilar (born September 21, 1980) is a recently hired general assignment reporter for CNN in the Washington, D.C. bureau. She previously worked for CNN Newsource as a national correspondent, also in Washington, D.C.

Keilar started in television news as an intern and production assistant at KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland, California. In 2001, she went to work as a general assignment reporter at KIMA, the CBS affiliate in Yakima, Washington. During that same time, she also worked in radio as a morning show personality and weekend news reader.

In 2003, Keilar moved to New York to be an anchor, reporter and producer for CBS News on mtvU, a newscast that aired on MTV's college network. At CBS News on mtvU, she covered the 2004 presidential primaries and election from New Hampshire, Boston and New York. Brianna also covered events like the 2005 NFL Draft for MTV-U. Keilar was 23 when she fill-in anchored on CBS News' overnight newscast, Up to the Minute, for the first time.

She was also a freelance reporter for CBS Evening News Weekend Edition before moving over to CNN.

Let's see if we can get Brianna's Cal attention... HEY BRIANNA, GO BEARS!!!!

Fingerpuppets this Saturday North Beach Grant And Green

The Fingerpuppets will be at the famous North Beach restaurant Grant & Green this Saturday. For a sample of their music, just click on the videos below:

I will Survive



"Sedated"

Tony West Of Obama For America On Rev. Wright And Superdelegates

At the California State Democratic Convention, Oakland-resident Tony West took time to talk with me in this video about the fight for Superdelegates and the Rev. Wright issue and the Obama campaign's position on both from his perspective as Obama for America Northern California Finance Chair and Field Director.

Barack Obama Overtakes Hillary Clinton in PA - 15 Point Lead Gone

Just three weeks ago, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton entered the Pennsylvania Primary with a 15 point lead in the polls conducted there.

To many, especially those in the mainstream media, it seemed that her lead was one Obama could not overcome. Many had projected her to win; a few, specifically CNN's Jack Cafferty, did observe that Obama has a tendency to turn the polling in a state once he's visited its people.

A few days ago, there were signs that the polls were turning Obama's way after the Bosnian Trip Scandal, which caught Senator Clinton openly lying about her involvement in the war there. The Bosnian Scandal overtook the Wright Issue in news reporting and contributed to the polling side which continued and was marked by Rassmusen's reported Clinton lead of just five percent a few days ago , so it was seemingly inevitable that at one point Obama could overtake Clinton in the Keystone State.

That happened today.

Senator Barack Obama now leads Senator Hillary Clinton 45 percent to 43 percent in a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling. Heres the text from the press release I received:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 2, 2008

Obama overtakes Clinton in PA

Raleigh, N.C. – Barack Obama has taken the lead over Hillary Clinton 45-43 in Pennsylvania, according to the newest survey from Public Policy Polling.

It’s a remarkable turn around from PPP’s last Pennsylvania poll, conducted two and a half weeks ago, that showed Clinton with a 26 point lead in the state. That poll was released at the height of the Jeremiah Wright controversy and the day before Obama’s major speech on race in Philadelphia. Obama has been trending upward in nationalpolling and in many state level polls since then and this survey reflects that pattern.

“In the last few weeks there has been increasing attention given to the fact that a continuing divisive Democratic nomination fight could hurt the party’s chances of defeating John McCain this fall,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.
“The major movement in Obama’s direction in Pennsylvania could be an indication that Democrats in that state think it’s time to wrap it up.”

Obama is narrowing the gap with white voters, trailing just 49-38, while maintaining his customary significant advantage with black voters. He leads that group 75-17.

Obama also leads among all age groups except senior citizens, with whom Clinton has a 50-34 advantage. The poll shows the standard gender gap with Obama leading by 15 points among men while trailing by 10 points with women.

PPP surveyed 1224 likely Democratic primary voters on March 31st and April 1st. The survey’s margin of errors is +/- 2.8%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.

Public Policy Polling had the most accurate numbers of any company in the country for the Democratic primaries in South Carolina and Wisconsin, as well as the closest numbers for any organization that polled the contests in both Texas and Ohio.

Complete results are attached and can be found at www.publicpolicypolling.com

More on this development soon.