New media is dramatically more efficient than old media at creating Internet content and getting page views, if numbers published by Gawker Media are any example.

According to Gawker publisher Nick Denton, July 2008 traffic to Gawker sites set a record for the organization of 254 million monthly pageviews. Denton goes on to note that Gawker is pulling in about twice the page views of the LA Times‘ site.

July 2008 Gawker Media traffic, by title:

• Gizmodo 73.5m
• Kotaku 44.3m
• Lifehacker 25.6m
• Gawker 18.9m
• Fleshbot 17.4m
• Jezebel 15.5m
• Consumerist 13.7m
• Jalopnik 13.4m
• Deadspin 12.6m
• io9 8.8m
• Defamer 6.4m
• Valleywag 3.3m

To put this in perspective, Gawker generated 2x more traffic than the country’s fourth-largest newspaper, with about a tenth of LA Times’ newsroom staff. (80 at Gawker Media, vs 700 in the newsroom at the LA Times).

It’s easy to point out that the LA Times does a lot more original reporting an a lot more high-quality reporting than Gawker Media, or to point out that Gawker targets the lowest common denominator.

Nevertheless, when a new media company is 20 times more efficient than an old media company at getting page views, it’s clear that old media organizations are going to have to become more like new media ones in order to survive.

via SAI

CNET News reports that YouTube has removed videos posted to the site by blogging firm Gawker Media, many of which featured clips from top TV shows that appeared between advertisements for Gawker’s blogs.

More than 50 clips were removed, and the YouTube user account “belowtheradar,” employed by Gawker to post the videos was deactivated sometime over the weekend, according to Lockhart Steele, Gawker Media’s managing editor.

Some copyright owners said that Gawker was using their material without permission. Entertainment lawyers predicted that Gawker would have a hard time justifying the use of copyright material to promote its Web sites. Since October, the company has posted clips from such shows as The Colbert Report and Good Morning America at YouTube. The videos were also embedded on Gawker’s blogs.
Gawker Media is a publisher of several popular gossip blogs, including Valleywag, which covers Silicon Valley,  Gawker, which focuses on New York City gossip, and Fleshbot, a blog about sex and pornography.