Back on January 13^th, Valleywag, the Silicon Valley subsidiary of Gawker Media, cut the ribbon on a “scavenger hunt” for information about the Apple Tablet, which led to Apple’s rather predictable response of sending Gawker a cease-and-desist letter. As the rumored release date of the Apple Tablet nears (January 27^th, according to numerous sources), so too, it would seem, does the end of Nick Denton’s mad quest to make Steve Jobs get serious about their relationship and sue him already. It promises to be interesting.

When Gawker reported that Wired boss Chris Anderson was too busy promoting his book to be present on layoff day, the tech editor took to his Twitter to defend himself. But Anderson angrily taking the bait of his ex-employee is exactly what Ryan Tate and Gawker want.

Today’s Gawker Media redesign unveils a new feature that attempts to optimize the loyalty of the network’s already robust fan base. Gawker Open Forums now exists on all of the group’s nine blogs, integrating social networking, crowdsourcing and standard discussion forums, leaving each blog as not only a conversation starter, but a channel where news can be broken, shared and commented on by readers, all in one place.