Like anyone in education, I never procrastinate today over what I can vacillate about tomorrow. And so it is with my estimation of Nick Denton, Gawker’s own Marquis de Sard.

I admire Denton’s blog empire, and his hard-headed approach to posting ($7.50 per 1,000 views), and yet it’s obvious too that his own role in Gawker largely allows him to pursue the kind of aimless, idiosyncratic nonsense best left to blogs – well – like this one.

Bobbie Johnson does an excellent post totting up Denton’s numbers and concludes:

19 of his posts – that’s nearly 21%, stat fans – didn’t even break the hallowed 1,000 pageview threshold… meaning they weren’t even worth a measly $7.50 in Gawker’s pay-per-view model.

Admittedly, he’s got his own nano-empire to run as well as the site, but Gawker does say “edited by Nick Denton” under the masthead. You’ve got to add some value, right? Looks like his obsessions with Barry Diller and the Manhattan media scene aren’t performing well enough.

Denton’s vanity posts piss in the pond of the commercial imperative he preaches. Which really makes Gawker more of what, at business school, they delicately refer to as “a lifestyle option.”

But they also confirm what everyone in journalism has always known. Monetising editorial content across platforms is business, but sardonic wise-assing to whoever’s listening? Pure pleasure!