Curbed Network, an urban real estate blog,
takes possession of Gawker Media’s Gridskipper travel blog tomorrow.
On the phone with Curbed president Lockhart Steele today, he mentioned Gridskipper will go into “quasi-hibernation” until it relaunches before Memorial Day. (Steele is Gawker’s former managing editor, while Gawker’s Nick Denton has a stake in Curbed.)
Count on Gridskipper, billed as “the urban travel guide,” to pare back its coverage of smaller cities such as Austin, TX. “I have nothing at all against Austin,” Steele said. But while he was at Gawker, Gridskipper had focused on the “best stuff from the most important cities.”
Last month, Gawker Media shed three of its 15 titles including Gridskipper, Wonkette, and Idolator. Wonkette was sold to Buzznet, while Wonkette was spun off to its managing editor.
Challenge is, can each of these site’s new owners do a better job at attracting revenue and readers than Gawker?