New Gawker Layout. Redesign Fail?. Gawker unveiled its redesigned site on Monday, moving away from its traditional blog format, but so far it hasn't been very well received.
The most notable feature of the revamped site is that one main story with a big photo dominates the homepage. Other stories are listed in a scrollable column on the right hand side of the window. It's a much different feel from Gawker's old site, which published a feed of stories as they were added.
As it can often go with the redesign of a popular site, the response has been less than favorable. According to a tweet from former Gawker editor-in-chief and current editor of The Atlantic Wire, page views are already down 25-33 percent on io9 and Jalopnik, two Gawker Media sites.
"Stay cool: we've been through worse backlashes," founder Nick Denton said in an internal memo obtained by Poynter's Jim Romenesko.
Apparently Denton has a lot of confidence in the new Gawker. So much that he made a bet with New York-based digital media consultant Rex Sorgatz after Sorgatz blogged that the redesign would fall flat.
Sorgatz posted the terms of his bet with Denton on his Tumblr. "We will check Quantcast on October 1, 2011. The goal is 510M pageviews/month. It's $10 for every million over/under," he wrote. "If the design reverts to the old format, he forfeits and pays out $1000."
But has Denton already relented? He's been chatting on Twitter with unsatisfied readers, saying repeatedly that they can click a button on the top of the page to "revert to a more traditional blog layout."
Source: http://www.pcmag.com
