Gawker Media sales are up 27% compared to the same quarter last year.  Those are some pretty serious numbers in a normal economy, but today? Nick Denton, CEO, has been dinged by bloggers who used to write for him for tying pay to traffic. If a Gawker writer posts a story that gets lots of readership, s/he get lots of money. Turns out this American way fee enterprise stuff works. This dude is make some “right” calls.

I’ve always loved Gawker and the way it has helped transform media – just read a mainstream newspaper columnist five years ago and compare the story to that columnist’s style today – but today Mr. Denton’s approach is hitting pay dirt. Advertisers are following. This blogger-portal journalism space is not only viable, there are signs it’s thriving.

Denton is hiring big time writers, ad agency media chiefs are making qualitative recommendations (without reams of syndicated research) and the stuff is pulling. There area couple of reasons why, but the most obvious is that Gawker readers are Posters. 33% of its readers have their own blogs and media that indexes high for Posters is valuable media. A couple of days ago I wrote about the “influence factor,” a concept of Charles Buchwalter, svp at Nielsen. This is a perfect example of influence factor at work and why good Posters should command higher CPMs and rates. Nick Denton is a seer. (Are you listening Newsday?)  Peace!