INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
After a two-year hiatus, Gawker is coming back
Peter Thiel, be damned.
Bustle-owner Bryan Goldberg, who paid $1.35 million for rights to the defunct gossip site in a bankruptcy auction
in July, wrote in a memo to Bustle staff Tuesday that Gawker would relaunch next year with Amanda Hale, the former chief revenue officer of
The Outline, as its publisher.
A spokespersonfor Bustle confirmed the hiring and upcoming launch to TechCrunch, adding that Hale &will be
responsible for building out the sales and marketing teams, and developing the overall strategy for the brand
Her first project will be to solidify a plan to ensure the Gawker archives have a safe and permanent home
We will be investing significant resources in this relaunch, and we will continue to make further announcements as plans progress.
According
to the memo,the new Gawkerwilltake advantage of Bustle resources, technology and business platform.
We won''t recreate Gawker exactly as it
was, but we will build upon Gawker legacy and triumphs — and learn from its missteps,& Goldberg wrote
&In so doing, we aim to create something new, vibrant, highly relevant, and worth visiting daily … completely distinct from our other
properties and sit within a separate corporate subsidiary,
Here the full memo, obtained by The Wall Street Journal Ben Mullin:
Full
@Gawker memo from Bryan Goldberg: &We won't recreate Gawker exactly as it was, but we will build upon Gawker legacy and triumphs — and
learn from its missteps.& pic.twitter.com/4gpRIrau0x
mdash; Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) September 11, 2018
Goldberg, a man, is the founder of
Bustle, a site that creates content for millennial women
He raised some $80 million in venture capital for the site, which appears to have found its footing after a rough start
In 2014, one year after Bustle launch, Goldberg penned a painfully tone-deaf blog post announcing a $6.5 million round:
Isn''t it time for a
women publication that puts world news and politics alongside beauty tips& he wrote
&What about a site that takes an introspective look at the celebrity world, while also having a lot of fun covering it How about a site that
offers career advice and book reviews, while also reporting on fashion trends and popular memes
Google Ventures pulled out of that round for
ethical reasons following the blog post
Goldberg went on to ink deals with several VCs, includingGGV, General Catalyst, Saban Capital Group and Social Capital.
As for Hale, she
left The Outline in May amid struggles at the digital media startup
Just last week, The Outline announced it was laying off its remaining staff writers and would rely solely on freelancers
It likely nearing a shutdown, despite having raised $5 million in venture capital funding earlier this year.
The dinner that destroyed
Gawker
The Outline reported struggles don''t hold a candle to Gawker tumultuous past.
Gawker parent company Gawker Media was forced to
file for Chapter 11 bankruptcyprotectionwhen a Florida court ordered it to pay $140 million in damages to Hulk Hogan, who had sued Gawker
for publishing his sex tape
The lawsuit, and two others against Gawker, was bankrolled by Peter Thiel
The PayPal co-founder and Silicon Valley billionaire had a long-standing vendetta against the site since it reported that he was gay before
he had come out publicly.
In its heyday, Gawker attracted 23 million visits in a month, according to Wikipedia
Based in New York and founded in 2003, Gawker Media also ran Jezebel,io9,DeadspinandKotaku— all of which were acquired by Univision for
$135 million following the infamous lawsuit.
