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Nick Denton gave Wonkette, Gridskipper, and Idolator their walking papers in paring his blog network down to an even dozen.

For us, Wonkette lost its appeal once Ana Marie Cox left and Wonkette became a Wonk.

That and two other blogs, urban travel site Gridskipper and music blog Idolator, will have new homes. Valleywag editor Owen Wilson republished the formal announcement email from Denton about the cuts:

Why these three sites? To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.

Everybody says that the internet is special; that advertising is still moving away from print and TV; and Gawker sites are still growing in traffic by about 90% a year, way faster than the web as a whole. But it would be naive to think that we can merely power through an advertising recession. We need to concentrate our energies, and the time of Chris Batty's sales group, on the sites with the greatest potential for audience and advertising.

In dropping three of his fifteen blogs, Denton said in his email Gawker Media only gave up about 3 percent of its total audience. If the ad bubble really does burst, as Denton has been expecting for a couple of years, Gawker Media will be a little ahead of the retrenching everyone else will have to do online.