(There's only one: When is it launching?)
And the answer is: sometime in late March--barring any development-related explosions, untimely illnesses, acts of God, etc.
The last week, most likely.
BUT look for a little teaser in a couple of weeks.
Update: Actually, a lot of people keep asking about hiring and blogger pay as well. I'm basically hiring one primary editor full-time (and at full-time rates) for every site we launch. It's a 9-5, more or less, and the site editors are essentially beat reporters. There will probably be additional contributors who post infrequently (people with some niche expertise or freelancers who want to cover a specific story), and they'll be paid per post, but I think it's important to have at least one person fully dedicated to each site.
And the corollary question: Are we hiring? Yes. Send resumés and cover letters to elizabeth AT dealbreaker DOT com. If you have a blog, include sample posts. If you don't, clips.
· Why Dealbreaker is not DealBook and vice versa. [FelixSalmon.com]
· Shots from the Dealbreaker video shoot, courtesy of Randy. (Starring: Krucoff, Harvey, Grellan, Doug, Dens, Brad, Me, Will and Becca. Shot and edited by Randy and Josh.)
RE: Melissa Moriarty's "Duke Girls Aren't What You Think" column... [via Deadspin]
Did the sorority make them wear matching white tank tops... or did they do it voluntarily?
And which is worse?
Aleks. Dude. Shouldn't you be hacking Citibank or the Defense Department or something?
Hacking ElizabethSpiers.com = Lame.
This weekend I officially became the last person in New York to acquire a digital camera. Maccers has been mocking me recently for having a Flickr account for over a year with no actual photos in it. And I'll admit that my lack of camera has dramatically reduced my relative ability to stalk Richard Dawkins at secular humanism conferences. In that respect, I defer entirely to Maccers.
But now that I have one, I plan to use it for the same purposes as the rest of this website: shameless self-promotion. Along those lines, i have a piece in the April issue of Jane about decoding celebrityspeak. I don't particularly like writing about celebrities (despite having done so for Gawker, New York Magazine, Page Six and various other publications) but in this case I did manage to get the phrase "blowup doll attached to a ventilator" published in a magazine owned by Si Newhouse. And I think that counts for something.
Lindsay also has a funny piece in this issue:
In other news: Silicon Alley is apparently back. (Actually, it was back a couple of years ago, but per Sunday Styles guidelines, no one was allowed to write about it until 24 months after the fact.)
In light of that, I've cleaned up my sidebar and added "Web 2.0" links to things like my nearly empty Flickr account. And when I get around to it, I'll add my Web 1.0 links: my SixDegrees page, my Kozmo.com account, my Contentville.com subscription...
Speaking of, I found this a couple of weeks ago when I unpacking some boxes in my new apartment:
I'm too lazy to enter the full list, but if you're feeling nostalgic, here are the Silicon Alley Top 15 in 2000:
1. Steve Case & Gerry Levin (AOL Time Warner)
2. Kevin O'Connor & Kevin Ryan (Doubleclick)
3. Bill Day & Scott Kurnit (About.com)
4. Jeff Dachis & Craig Kanarick (Razorfish)
5. Chan Suh & Kyle Shannon (Agency.com)
6. Jerry Colonna, Bob Greene & Fred Wilson (Flatiron Partners)
7. Gene DeRose & Tod Johnson (Jupiter Media Metrix)
8. Clifford Sobel (Net2Phone)
9. Alan Meckler (Internet.com)
10. Richard Johnson (HotJobs.com)
11. Fernando Espuelas (StarMedia Network)
12. Glenn Meyers (Rare Medium)
13. Richard Forman (Register.com)
14. Jason Devitt & David Joerg (Vindigo)
15. David Moore (24/7 Media)
And check out the hed on Jason's editor's letter.
I'll be reading at the next Ritalin Reading on Tuesday, the 28th at Mo Pitkins. You can get tickets here.
Also reading:
Jonathan Coulton
Jon Friedman
Chris Genoa
John Green
Sam Lipsyte
Brad Steurnagel
(Hosted by Lindsay, Alex and Jon Friedman.)
From today's Metro:
Text below:
INSIDER DEALING is about to take on a whole new meaning on Wall Street. The founding editor of New York’s most popular media gossip blog is turning her attention to the money men. Elizabeth Spiers, who began her blogging career at Gawker, will launch a new site called Dealbreaker (www.dealbreaker.com) next week. The blog, which will focus on Wall Street personalities and culture, is sure to include the same blend of humor and behind-the-scenes gossip that made Gawker an obligatory bookmark of New York’s media elite. “We’re not looking at analysis and journalists’ assessments of how companies are doing,” says Spiers. “We’ll leave that to TheStreet.com. This is more like how it would be if ‘The Daily Show’ did CNBC.” Spiers, 29, is no stranger to Wall Street. She worked as an equity analyst for hedge funds before joining Gawker in December 2002. In fact, she says that she intended to launch Dealbreaker soon afterward but Gawker swallowed up too much of her time. She says about one-third of Gawker’s initial audience was people who worked in financial services. And she believes there is a hunger in the financial world for more behind-the-scenes information. More transparency “There is a lot less transparency in the financial world than there should be,” says Spiers. “Most financial journalists only cover public companies. They are not covering hedge funds or small financial institutions in the way they probably should be. Besides, Wall Street people are just as colorful and interesting, so I think there is plenty of material out there.” Spiers left Gawker for New York magazine in fall 2003. She later joined New York’s Mediabistro.com as editor-in-chief, where she helped launch Gawker rival fishbowlNY. Her first novel, a satire of Wall Street and the media called “And They All Die in the End” will be published in the fall. Dealbreaker is the start of a new blog network that Spiers is launching with the backing of two investors, Carter Burden, the CEO of Web hosting company Logicworks, and Justin Smith, president of news magazine The Week. Each site will have one, full-time editor plus additional contributors. Spiers said two more sites will launch in the fall but she would not reveal their focus. She has writers lined up for Dealbreaker but she is looking for writers for future sites. In the meantime, tips are also always welcome. You can send them
to tips@dealbreaker.com
PAUL BERGER
blogarithms@metro.us
Paul Berger writes a blog called Englishman in New York
at www.pdberger.com.
[A few minor things here, but chiefly: My book isn't actually out until sometime in 2007.]
I spoke to Patrick Phillips' NYU J-School class last week and the resulting Q&A is published here.
I viscerally hate having my photo taken and only stopped running away from Nikola at parties when I realized it made things worse. So after using a candid photo Uncle Grambo took at a party as a contributor's photo for the last three years or so, I sucked it up and went to get a headshot. I'm not very photogenic to begin with, but I have an almost Pavlovian response to cameras that involves scowling, looking for someone taller to hide behind (not difficult), then, if that doesn't work, trying to smile and managing something closer to a grimace while looking as if someone's slowly twisting my arm behind my back and I'm trying to hide the pain. It's not pretty--literally or figuratively.
But I've gotten a lot of compliments on Paul Sarkis' headshots that I've been using for DealBreaker press--probably because I don't look overtly hostile in them. Paul is awesome.
And now I won't have to do that for another 5 or 10 years at least. I figure passport photo expiration is a good standard for that sort of thing.
At 6 PM, I'll be sitting on a panel at Baruch about financial journalism and blogs hosted by the New York Financial Writers Association. Other panelists are Paul Maidment, of Forbes.com, Tom Taulli and Greg Newton from Naked Shorts.
And at 8:30 PM, I'm reading at Lindsay Robertson, Alex Balk and Jon Friendman's Ritalin Reading series with a lot of people who are funnier than I am. Like: Jonathan Coulton, Jon Friedman, Chris Genoa, John Green, Sam Lipsyte, Brad Steurnagel and Eugene Mirman. Come for the funny, stay for the me.
Details here.