What should we call Gawker’s new blogs?

1.11K

J.K. Trotter

12/22/14 09:00AM

Filed to: poll

As noted here:

In addition to those five blogs, we'd be launching five more. None require extra hiring; all are open to suggestion and modification:
Media: Media criticism and New York-centric power gossip.
Justice: Politics, inequality, business, the economy, opinion, argument.
Internet: Cybersecurity, dark web, internet culture.
True Stories: This would be, essentially, a bucket for our regular first-person features: Weekend and weekday personal essays, oral histories, collected stories.
And, finally, we'd have the " news feed," overseen by Taylor, which would share all content from the other nine sub-blogs as well as be the home for the "churn": the breaking news and viral stories everyone is talking about and that we need to cover, but don't yet have anything major or lasting to say about.

Most of these suggestions are probably unworkable, but to get things started, here are mine:

Media: Redtop, Deep Background (On Background?), Too Insidery (h/t Max), Journalismism, Hegemon, 2003

Justice: The Republic (or just Justice)

Internet: Hello World, IDK, Spider (probably too obvious)

True Stories: True Stories

News Feed: Feed (i.e., feed.gawker.com)

Like I said: suggestions!

For further reference, here is how the name for Deadspin came about:

Naming Deadspin
During the arduous naming process, multiple names were bandied about, including Miscaster, Deadball, Offscore, Offjock, Spinstop, Tronball and finally Deadspin.
Transcript of AIM chat, June 6, 2005:
mynameisleitch: Hmm. Deadspin. That's not horrible. Is that the general consensus?
lockhart steele: it was the favorite of the group yesterday
mynameisleitch: It's no Tronball, that's for sure.
mynameisleitch: Deadball is almost better.
mynameisleitch: But deadspin is not bad.
lockhart steele: i like it
lockhart steele: perhaps more importantly, Mr. Denton likes it
mynameisleitch: Yes. It's livable.
lockhart steele: ponder it. let it roll off the tongue.

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Max Read J.K. Trotter 12/22/14 10:06AM

I'm still leaning toward just calling them Gawker Politics, Gawker Gossip, and...Gawker Internet, or something. (We may just repurpose the already-extant Weird Internet sub, but that has its own branding problems.)

Until they have more clearly defined identities and voices, it seems silly to spend a lot of time trying to develop independent branding, especially since Kinja currently doesn't provide any visual signals about the sub-blogs' connection to their parent.

J.K. Trotter Max Read 12/22/14 10:36AM

Aren’t diagonals intended to have clearly defined identities, though? Like ROYGBIV, Foxtrot Alpha, The Concourse, etc. Plus each section as currently imagined straddles a lot of different topics: Is Gawker Gossip also the Gawker Media Blog? Is Gawker Politics also Gawker Justice?

None of this is to say that the other sites’ implementation will definitely work here. But establishing several diagonals just to name them variations of “Gawker X” seems like a wasted opportunity.

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Max Read J.K. Trotter 12/22/14 11:02AM

The trick is figuring out how to split the difference between a completely new identity—which would require some heavy lifting to introduce to a new readership—and a mere bucket for a certain kind of content.

I don't think we really want to spend a lot of time or energy rolling out three or four new brands when we're not even entirely sure what they'll look and sound like. I'd rather start them up, and figuring out branding as the voices develop. If we reach a point where "Gawker Politics" has enough of a clearly defined voice and identity that it needs its own more separate name and branding, we can easily create it. But since we want people who arrive at the site from elsewhere to understand that it still comes from Gawker.com—which has a strong and recognizable brand identity—making its provenance clear in the title and logo will give it a leg up as it starts.

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J.K. Trotter Max Read 12/22/14 12:41PM

All good points. In which case, if we’re trying to make both the differentiation and affiliation clear, we could try simple variations of the (very modifiable) Gawker logo. E.g., for the media/gossip blog, maybe we could ape the dark/mysterious illustration here and simply go with an all-black signage:

IDK, something like that?

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Life is a Playlist J.K. Trotter 12/22/14 07:23PM

Can you just make my life easier and move Flight Club from Jalopnik to Gawker?

It's the only time I leave gawker.com. Thanks in advance.

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Matthewtuckey J.K. Trotter 12/22/14 12:17PM

Whatever the case, I think Gawker's blogs have always lacked a clear introduction to explain how each one differs from the others and what that individual blog's mission is. I also think a name should mean something to a select few people who bothered to look it up and see the relevance, or are part of that world anyway.

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Max Read Matthewtuckey 12/22/14 12:37PM

Yes, I agree. Given that there's currently no baked-in way to give the reader summarizing mission statement or tagline (other than the page title—and who looks at that?), the quickest way to let a new reader know that they've reached a blog run by Gawker that has a specific area of coverage—e.g., politics—is to just call it Gawker Politics. It's oversimplified and a bit boring, but it's preferable to a cute name that doesn't resonate and confuses new readers.

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d-russ J.K. Trotter 12/22/14 12:51PM

Media: Red Dot (as in recording light)

Justice: Ill Ilk

Internet: Cyberations

True Stories: Real Talk

News Feed: FeedMe (url: feed.gawker.com)

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whitemare J.K. Trotter 12/22/14 01:07PM

Media: "Wag The Tongue" as opposed to the tail wagging the dog

Justice: "Courting Trouble" - looking for trouble

Internet: "Nary A One" - nary = none, 0 and 1 are binary

True Stories: "Sober Quetch" - quetch means "to complain"; a sobriquet is a nickname

News Feed: "Shot Off" - 'hot off the presses', but faster

As you might guess, I like plays on words, double entendres.