Nick Denton Admits Gawker’s Redesign Wasn’t All They’d Hoped It Be

by Alex Alvarez | 9:05 am, March 1st, 2011

» 20 comments

Earlier this year, Gawker Media unveiled a new look (and, more importantly, a new user interface) across several of its ~~blogs~~ websites (blogs are a thing of the past, y’know, not unlike Twitter), including science and sci-fi blog i09 and Gawker, the company’s flagship news and gossip site. At the time, we asked you how you felt about the redesign, with many of you expressing irritation over the changes, and one commenter noting that he (or she) found the design to be both faster-loading easier to navigate.

Now, it seems our initial hesitation to embrace the site’s bold new design choices was totally warranted. So many people had issues with Gawker’s new look (and, subsequently, unique views to the site dropped) to the point that Gawker Media founder Nick Denton sent out a memo to staffers basically admitting that the whole… experiment… could have gone better.

This is significant because, previously, Denton had been so confident that the site’s new layout would bring in pageviews – eventually – that he even made a bet with Mediaite’s own site designer and frequent contributor Rex Sorgatz after Sorgatz announced that the redesign would ultimately fail. Reported Nieman Journalism Lab‘s Megan Garber:

One person who took Sorgatz up on his offer: Denton himself. (“Money where your mouth is,” he told me.) The measure will be October pageviews on Quantcast. The market’s at 510 million pageviews at the moment — so “for every million over that, he pays me $10,” Denton says. And “for every million under, I pay him.”
While Gawker’s views could very well have climbed up to pre-redesign numbers given some more time, it seems The Powers That Be at Gawker Media decided it was better to change course rather than stick it out to see what happens.

So, now, Denton is singing a very different tune, admitting in the memo that when the redesign first launched, “some key features simply did not work – which is no way to introduce readers to something new.” Gawker has published a list of tweaks and changes it’ll implement to the site’s design (buttons to social networking and sharing sites other than Facebook have, you might have noticed, found their way back on Gawker some time ago)… Which leaves us with just one question.

How much will Sorgatz walk away with again?

h/t Poynter / Romenesko

Blogs, Gawker, Memo, Nick Denton, Redesign, Rex Sorgatz

ice queen

When a local newspaper updated their Online presence they asked their readers’ opinion of the site, while many said they enjoyed the clean look of it others, myself included thought it was terrible. Instead of being unique it now looked like every other newspaper site. One of my biggest pet peeves was that the share, twitter, and email buttons did not work(they had before the redesign) and after many complaints from disgruntled readers we were told that the new site did not work well with browsers such as Google Chrome unless you tweaked your settings, not good. While a new look is great the publisher, editors and tech staff should be very sure that everything works or they will be minus some readers. And that’s why I love this site you guys listen when we voice our opinion on changes, but so far the changes here have been so subtle, by my standards , that I haven’t seen any problems.
The Real RoyaI King

I took all the gawker media sites off my bar the day that redesign went live.

It’s absolutely TERRIBLE.
BadGenome

You mean they weren’t hoping it would be a complete and utter piece of shit?
lazzzlo

Seriously,

Gawker’s re-design is less than perfect.

duh!
lazzzlo

I used to like Gizmodo…the HTML code alone on the web pages is poor.

I don’t mind these boards but I do wish they used an “edit”button. DISQOUS offers that.
lazzzlo

BadGenome said:
You mean they weren’t hoping it would be a complete and utter piece of shit?

I was trying to be polite…but, yeah!
Arch

Please follow up with a post when the bet is settled letting us know how it came out.
bohratom

I posted a comment the new layout went live that it reminded me of “New Coke”. I got a private email from someone in their customer relations department that my comment was given out at a board meeting and the next day they decided it had to change.
bohratom

BTW he also sent me a way to keep the pages the classic way, it was to add “/#!classic” at the end of the url.
No longer needed now as they have defaulted http://www.gawker.com to classic.
weatherman

As someone who used to comment frequently on Gawker sites, I think the redesign has been an absolute disaster. Gawker used to have one of the best commenting systems around – it encouraged thoughtful comments, developed a community of and readers, and discouraged trolls. The redesign sidelined the commenting system in favor of a more “newsy” layout, in what I assume was an attempt by Denton to have his sites stop being thought of as “blogs” and instead be thought of as real news. As soon as I saw the new design I knew it was done for the wrong reasons, not for the sake of the readers or the commenters, and that as a result the commenting community would die, and traffic would fall. At least Rex saw it coming and managed to make some money off it – I bet he wishes he would have taken a higher stake though!
Probably NOT wrong

The Real RoyaI King said:
I took all the gawker media sites off my bar the day that redesign went live. It’s absolutely TERRIBLE.

My God. That must have ruined their day.
WHarropson

I went there and never got past the first page. All links were dead.
louisa

bohratom said:
I posted a comment the new layout went live that it reminded me of “New Coke”. I got a private email from someone in their customer relations department that my comment was given out at a board meeting and the next day they decided it had to change.

Wow, congratulations on being the one commenter out of dozens (if not hundreds) to make the comparison to New Coke. (Kidding…the irony in your post is killing me. God, those idiots, thinking anything they had to say could change Denton’s mind.)
http://cbcf.groupsite.com Miss Capri

New design or no new design, it’s still Gawker, just a gossip site. Blech, who cares?
Salome Valentine

I was a Gawker devotee for four years before the redesign. I read and commented here almost every single day. I respect Mr. Denton’s general business savvy and obvious history of past successes. But there’s no excuse for rolling out a new format that only works partially, at best. When 1500 commenters are leaving scathing comments three weeks after the redesign, that’s not a good sign.

Mr. Denton famously stated that Gawker’s commenters were keeping the site in a ghetto. Now that I – and about 250 of Gawker’s best and most loyal readers – have found a sanctuary at Crasstalk.com, another socially interactive blog (where we get to not only comment but contribute to the site by writing posts on a variety of interesting subjects), I surely hope that he is feeling liberated from the ghetto we were keeping him in.
Salome Valentine

Salome Valentine said:
I was a Gawker devotee for four years before the redesign. I read and commented there almost every single day. I respect Mr. Denton’s general business savvy and obvious history of past successes. But there’s no excuse for rolling out a new format that only works partially, at best. When 1500 commenters are leaving scathing comments three weeks after the redesign, that’s not a good sign.

Mr. Denton famously stated that Gawker’s commenters were keeping the site in a ghetto. Now that I – and about 250 of Gawker’s best and most loyal readers – have found a sanctuary at Crasstalk.com, another socially interactive blog (where we get to not only comment but contribute to the site by writing posts on a variety of interesting subjects), I surely hope that he is feeling liberated from the ghetto we were keeping him in.
Contessa

I was a total Gawker fan until the redesign. I read Gawker for the Commentators, not the news. Everybody has the same news stories, it was only Gawker that had hysterical commentary attached to those stories. Oh well, It’s just Chinatown….

PS: My nickname for Gawker is now: NEWCOKE
adenverguy3

The numbers at quantcast tell the story. Case. Closed.
PandasDontSayYe

If Gawker had taken the commenters into consideration at all before the redesign, it could have avoided this mess. People will put up with tweaks and other problems when they feel appreciated and like the site is trying to make the user experience ultimately better. If Gawker had done even basic market research (which I’m sure many of the commenters would have been happy to provide for free), it would have found that people were unhappy with the lack of a scroll bar and had difficulty navigating the site. But even in his memo, the attitude that the commenters are annoying and he is ultimately right and ahead of the times is clear. Many of the avid commenters have crossed over to http://www.crasstalk.com instead. Shortly after the Gawker redesign, Crasstalk went through a redesign of its own. But the commenters were patient and supportive because their voices were being heard and appreciated. Plus, the new Crasstalk layout actually works.
Stacey

I read Gawker because its commenters were opinionated, intelligent, snarky, and a lot of fun to read. I no longer read Gawker because Denton has made it abundantly clear that his readership, (thus his IPO, Huff-Post-like buyout, or ability to charge for 10 and 30 second video commercials) was due to the greatness of Gawker – not the brilliance of its commenters.

Good luck with that. It’s newly “starred” commenters read like fourteen-year-olds with second grade writing ability and no critical thinking skills whatsoever.

Crasstalk.com rules!