A lot of sites have been experiencing major crises in traffic over the last week or so since Google’s recent algorithm update aimed at low quality content. Gawker has been hit with a similar problem, but for an entirely different reason.

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton revealed today that the company’s traffic is down by nearly a quarter as a result of the recent widely publicized redesign. 

I can’t remember the last time we’ve seen so many hacking (and related) stories in the news, particularly in which so many big name brands were affected in such a short amount of time. Last week, of course the big stories were about "Anonymous" taking down MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, etc. 

Update: Deadspin has posted yet another set of messages from Salisbury, who claims he is finally finished sending them. In the latest set, he talks about how he wanted his messages off the record and not posted on the site, but then changes his mind.

At the end of 2008, it was announced that Consumers Union, publishers of Consumer Reports was acquiring Consumerist.com from Nick Denton’s Gawker Media. Gawker has now dropped its Defamer.com site as its own entity and rolled it into Gawker.com as the site’s "column from Hollywood."

Consumer Reports publisher Consumers Union has acquired Consumerist.com from Nick Denton’s Gawker Media. Consumerist.com will operate independently of Consumer Reports publications, and will reside under a new non-profit entity called Consumer Media LLC.

 OK folks. Everyone knows that John McCain has choose theAlaska governor Sarah Palin. I am not posting today to discuss if this was a good choice or not. If she is or is not ready for the job. If she has to much baggage or not.

The web levels the playing field, allowing individuals to compete with larger corporations, largely through the smaller players making dirt public and launching viral marketing campaigns around issues. Because there is a publisher publishing every opinion and angle, it is easy to discount just about everything, especially attempts for new market participants to become remarkable.

It may be a new year, but we’re still talking (well, some of us are anyway) about an old issue: namely, the idea of paying writers based on the traffic they get.

The focus of the debate right now is Gawker, where Nick Denton has apparently started paying his bloggers based in part on how many views their posts get. This one has been around for awhile, but now it’s official thanks to a memo on (Gawker-owned) Valleywag.