I have some bad news. Here's the heart of it: we are cutting 19 of our 133 editorial positions and suspending bonus payments at the start of next year. With the savings, we are increasing base pay and hiring 10 new people on the most commercially successful Gawker sites. But I know that's scant consolation for the colleagues we're losing and for those of you who have been enjoying the bonus windfalls from breakout stories.

You can guess the reason for these brutal measures: the recession. Sure, the company is currently profitable and advertising sales are up by about 30% on their level of a year ago. Our biggest clients are consumer electronics and entertainment companies that are relatively well insulated. And, yes, this is not the first time I've predicted doom: in July 2006, when we "battened down the hatches" and closed down Sploid and Screenhead; and in April this year, when we spun off Idolator, Gridskipper and Wonkette.

But now the credit crisis is clearly going to affect every sector of the economy. Advertising buys typically plunge after the Christmas shopping season, and 2009 is obviously going to be exceptionally difficult. We have to prepare for the worst, now, rather than when the worst comes upon us.

We never used to talk about the business side of the operation. Traffic was the only concern; my belief was that juicy news would draw the readers and the advertising would take care of itself. We were patient; even if it took four years for a site to develop the audience that finally registered with advertisers, we had the time. No longer.

Sites such as Consumerist, whose success has been measured more in traffic and recognition than in revenue, now need to cover their costs. I can't underline enough that this harsh commercial judgment is no reflection whatsoever on the editorial teams that are being cut.

Each of these sites performs a vital function. Consumerist provides an outlet for disgruntled consumers that exists nowhere else on the web; Valleywag has given puffed-up Silicon Valley the prick it's long needed; and Fleshbot manages to be classy and filthy at the same time. The site leads and writers on all of our sites have done exactly what we asked them to: work harder than the competition and grow the audience. It's my commercial judgment that's been at fault.

One reason we're eliminating these positions is to reinforce the teams on the sites with the most commercial appeal—Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker and Gawker—and the properties such as Jezebel, io9, Deadspin and Jalopnik which are poised to join them.

One new recruit we're confirming today is Gabriel Snyder from W Magazine in Los Angeles who, as managing editor of Gawker.com, will continue the site's evolution into a national news and entertainment site. We are also hiring new contributors at Jezebel, Deadspin, Kotaku and io9.

Even in the growing editorial teams we need to control costs. And that means a new look at traffic bonuses. We've been spending $50,000 a month on average on pageview bonuses. The scheme has made writers hustle for traffic even in teams so large that there was a risk they become lumbering. It's helped us hit a record 274m pageviews last month, up 69% on last September.

Pageview bonuses will continue this quarter. And we are committed to pageview incentives, and to measuring performance by a writer's individual pageviews, in the long term. But a first quarter spike in traffic — and the resulting bonus payments — could be dangerous if advertising markets are troubled next year. And we're assuming that the economy is so volatile that most of you would like a little bit more predictability about your own income.

That's why we're suspending the pageview bonus for the first quarter at least, but making up for some of the loss of income by raising pay. If you haven't recently agreed to a new rate, your monthly base amount will automatically be increased by 5% in January.

The news about the job and bonus cuts will be demoralizing. The golden age of the blog is over, people will say. Gawker Media is behaving like those big media companies that we mock so easily. I could come up with some bullshit line about how much worse it would have been to wait until we were forced to control costs; or how much more unpleasant life will be at the many internet ventures and newspapers that won't make it through the downturn. I could give you my optimistic spin about the glorious future that awaits us on the far side of this downturn.

But there is no escaping the fact that we're losing some excellent colleagues and the environment next year will be bleak. The one consolation is that there will be plenty of news for us to break — starting with this email, which you are free to leak.

After two years of playing footsie with Valleywag, I've finally been hired full time to write for what these kids call The Olds — that means winning over Fleetwood Mac fans and Fortune subscribers. Waist-high ace reporter Kara Swisher goaded me to start my first full day today with a journalistic "disclosure" statement like hers. She assured me that coming clean of my conflicts of interest would assuage Internet geezers suspicious of eww bloggers. Ok, but just this once. I hate journalism about journalism, plus I need to get back to nagging Arnel Pineda for an interview.

• Like Kara, I have an overachieving wife with a real tech job — she's a vice president at Splunk. California's trophy-spouse-friendly property laws award me exactly half of Christina's stock earned during our marriage. Even if she dumps me. Has that colored Valleywag's coverage of Splunk CEO Michael Baum? Of course it has: Splunk gets extra hate. I'm sure passive-aggressive Valleywag chief Owen Thomas will do his best to keep my Splunk shares worth 50 percent of nothing for as long as possible so I can't afford to quit on him. (UPDATE: See, I told you so.)
• Wired editor Chris Anderson, whom I think the world of even though he fired me once, offered stellar advice: "Let others take the cheap shots." Way to spoil my fun again, Chris, but you're right. I'm going to push everyone here to step up to our motto, "Valleywag will never stab you in the back. We'll stab you in the face." If we ever write about you, it'll be so deservedly true that you'll pine for the days of the cheap shots.
• Dear corporate spokespeople: Standard public relations procedure in the Valley is to blow off reporters who seek your boss to confirm a totally-true rumor with the canned statement, "Mr Founderbot is traveling and cannot be reached for comment." It's the worst lie imaginable. A high-tech CEO who can't be reached. Many traditional news publications' rules require them to quote this bullshit. I'll just post my story. Traveling Man can add a comment if he ever comes back.
• Valleywag's ethics rules are on a wiki. I'll stop there.

The big tech pubs have been shuffling their A-team players lately. Steven Levy jumped from Newsweek to Wired. Dan Lyons left Forbes to replace Levy at Newsweek. Forbes is now doing some high-end poaching of its own. (Can we vote for Brendan Koerner?) And the New York Times is staffing up for battle with the Wall Street Journal. Here at Valleywag, we heard that perpetual hanger-on, WSJ book reviewer, Wired kibbitzer and Bono impersonator Paul Boutin was being pulled into interviews for some of these big gigs. Paul, we told him, why bother? No matter where you end up, every single article you write will be 100-worded and openly mocked on Valleywag. Why don't you just finally join the team and post the stuff yourself here? Cracked Boutin, "That seems easier." He starts July 1.

The back story: Boutin and I met 11 years ago when we were both working at a dotcom called HotWired, a long-forgotten online offshoot of Wired. He emailed me asking for schwag from Suck.com, the site on which I worked; I left stickers and postcards and every other sort of branded giveaway on his chair, from which he was invariably absent. We eventually managed to meet — our door-desks were only 30 yards apart, after all. From those virtual beginnings came a fine bromance, and any number of coconspiratorial collaborations. Over the years, though, we never managed to draw a paycheck from the same place at the same time.

Until now. While he's contributed to Valleywag in countless ways since its inception, his work has always been tempered by employment obligations elsewhere. No more! At last, Paul's all ours — which means, gentle readers, he's all yours.

Boutin's not the only one signing on for more. Alaska Miller, one of our more vociferous commenters, is joining us as a summer intern. And while we're sad to lose calendarist Dianne de Guzman, who's starting a master's program in journalism at the University of Southern California in August, we're happy to have found a replacement, Adriana Nunez, who will pick up her duties starting in July.

Paul Boutin's notes on the Valleywag voice

THE RAGE OF THE CREATIVE UNDERCLASS We need to put back the Gawkeresque angry-creative-underclass glint to our voice. Just one glint of nastiness per post. I loved Carlson's advice to Paultards on their irrelevance: "Don't just take my word for it. Go to the polls and find out for yourselves." Zing, and irrefutably true.

DENTON'S FORMULA: MIX A PLUS AND A MINUS If someone screwed up in business, find something nice to say about them: "The charmingly incompetent CEO." If someone succeeded, find a way to slap them. "The wildly successful blowhard." Denton says this is a key to Gawker posts about people, and when he got lazy he slipped on it and readers noticed in a roundabout way that the site felt less brilliant.

PEOPLE, NOT COMPANIES OR PRODUCTS Write about Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ive rather than "Apple" as an actor. Or find out who their VP of sales is if they've had a wildly succesful quarter and credit him/her, a nice detail. I don't want to read that the Zune is a flop, I want to read that Wink Twinkerton, head of the Zune division, has done for portable music players what Bill Gates did for CEO sex appeal.

BE INSULTING, BUT BE SURPRISING Calling Ron Paul a loon isn't edgy. Much better was "voting for Ron Paul sends a message. The message is you're crazy and hate the FDA." That's a nice setup and punch line, and a good non-cliche detail rather than an unspecific "loon."

DON'T LET YOUR ANGER GET TO YOU If someone whose politics or opinions you disagree with says something you want to call out, don't do a straight-ahead criticism. Instead, take their argument further to a simple but ridiculous conclusion. When Hillary Clinton proposed a moratorium on home foreclosures and a freeze on loan rates, Jordan Golson asked, "Why not a moratorium on people paying their mortgages? That seems easier."

BEAT-DOWNS ARE BAD You've wrung this out of them mostly, but I still see the young ones do the oldschool Ann Coulter / Molly Ivins thing of insulting someone three times in a paragraph when once would be better. Pick the one best dig and save the others for another time.

NO FISKING If someone says several stupid things in one piece, just quote them and don't rebut each line separately. Do a 100-word version with only the dumbest parts. Readers will get it.

IF YOU WOULDN'T SAY IT IN A CONVERSATION, DON'T WRITE IT Avoid journalist-speak like "He takes umbrage with our statement." You never say umbrage in real life.

AVOID JOURNALIST MATH, USE SPECIFICS Some, many, few ... these are journalist numbers for when they want to imply a trend. Often they're used to overstate the number of people who do or don't do something. "Some feel that Obama ..." Cut that, and instead give me a specific quote from a linkable person that sums up the general mood you're talking about.

ONE JOKE PER POST We've slipped on that. Too many jokes comes across as not having enough to report. Keep the post short and move onto the next one.

BAIL EARLY Surprise readers by quitting on a review or report halfway through it, once you know you've hit the hight points already. Find some reason to explain your exit. Melissa Gira Grant started to summarize the SF Bay Guardian's annual sex guide, but when she got to a piece that was restaurant suggestions, she wrote, "I stopped reading here." It keeps posts short, and breaks the mold of the reviewer who takes 400 words to wind down.

SATIRE AND PARODY Should be used to illustrate someone's foibles. E.g. President Steve Jobs issues the most expensive US budget ever, but it fits in a manila envelope.

JUST NEVER USE THESE WORDS Douche, douchebag, douchery, asshat. Techcrunch uses them, need I say more. (To which I'll add: "teh," "intarwebs," "lulz." - Owen)

So, our questions: Come on guys, quit blogging about net neutrality or whatever and give the people what they want. Who was on the party plane? Mitch? I'm checking your blog. Tim? That's some Radar I'd like to see. Zuck? I'm checking your status updates. Nothing. Don't let us down. Oh yeah, and Paul Boutin is in the market for a new bed. What size does the Google Jet have — King, California King, or Euro King? Oh, and did any of you cheapskate tech moguls reimburse Larry and Sergey for the cost of the flight?

Entrepreneurs You guys think money is everything. That is, you think money is some sort of universal currency into which anything can be converted, and which can be converted to anything else.

• Good writing is one of the things you can't buy with just cash. Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, has proven that again and again.
• Even when you guys mean to be helpful, you get it all wrong. (A) You encourage me to demand more money from my editors. The only thing they'll pay extra for is being famous, because that sells more copies without buyers having to read the article first. (B) You offer to let me "pick up a few extra bucks" by writing your kids' college entrance essays.
• Here's an idea: Pay me to mention your company and/or product in one of my articles. Not that I would, but I'm sure someone else will. The astounding thing is in 11 years I've been offered money for everything but a covert endorsement. You guys have a blind spot there.

Engineers It's hard to be smarter than everyone else, isn't it? You tech people never ask anything about my job. Instead, you explain it to me.

• You just know that my life as a professional writer must be exactly like your life as a professional software developer or sysadmin. Salespeople must come by my desk and demand I change my articles so they can close a big deal, right?
  
• You're 100% certain that if you wrote the article instead of me, it would have been better. Lucky for you, your fellow engineers are like string theorists: They'll praise this assertion for its elegance and daring, instead of asking you to prove it with a real-world test.
  
• You'll explain to me that my ideas for articles start from press releases, and must be reviewed prior to publication by the companies I write about. If I recommend your competition, it must mean they bought an ad. You got this worldview from your company's PR lady. You have a crush on her.
  
• Do me a favor: 34 percent of the Internet is comments from engineers that begin, "It is unsurprising to me that ..." Look, we get it. Nothing surprises you. So it's unsurprising to us that it's unsurprising to you. So shut up already.

Bloggers There is, in fact, a special circle of hell reserved for you. You're keeping it real! Real long, and real dull.

• The only other fields where people spend all their time bragging about themselves and insulting their rivals are talk radio and gangster rap. There's your level of intellectual discourse.
  
• Jack Kerouac? He had an editor. Allen Ginsberg? Spent months rewriting "Howl." Andrew Sullivan? Face time with the world's best editors, and he still puts me to sleep when he writes solo.
  
• Free advice: Every time you type the words "not so much," or "the internets," or "Techmeme," reach for that key that says DELETE and press it a few times fast. You're a better writer already!

(Did you notice? I don't hate PR people. Sure, I filter all messages with "for immediate release" or "embargo." But you guys are OK. It helps that you pick up the tab — not the free drinks, but the principle of the thing.)

Nick Denton's new pay scale — more to the point, the reactions to it — prompted me to write all this down. The thing that ties entrepreneurs, engineers and bloggers together is they all think they know everything. If you can suffer through 150 know-it-all posts, you'll find that no one got it right, on two counts.

• I hardly know who Nick Denton is. He emails us all "please log out of nexis" once a week, and has posted one comment to my work: "This post breaks the first rule of internet argument." Since there's only one rule of Internet argument and it's "Don't be boring," I ignore him. I'm logged out of Nexis already.
• Denton's new pay scale works like this: Instead of autobilling him twelve bucks a post, I'm now paid a flat fee in exchange for a minimum number of posts. There's some traffic bonus, but whatever. The important thing is that my extra posts don't cost Denton anything. So I can now post anything I want without feeling guilty. Here you go.

To be honest, I was sure the Times would win. But I'm enjoying Cadenhead's assessment that Wikipedia wins the bet — isn't that the sort of twist any Webhead would want? Cadenhead has exposed the flaw in my genius idea: I presumed there were only two sides. That's journalist math. Any real techie knows there are never only two values to anything in real life. Even the 1's and 0's inside your CPU depend on where you draw the line between a 0 and a 1. Part of what makes the Internet so fascinating is it constantly proves there are potentially infinite outcomes to any story.

I managed to snap this one pics-or-it-didn't-happen piece of photographic evidence. It proves that good times were had by yours truly and Eric Eldon of VentureBeat. After that, I put down my now-useless, superhigh-tech, amazingly unusable Sony camera, which if I haven't mentioned it, was lent to me by my good friend Brian Lam, gadget expert. I look prettier with a lemon drop in my hand than a camera anyway. Flickr photo sluts Terry Chay and Jeremy Pepper were also there, so you can check their streams for more.

Oh, and confidential to Caroline McCarthy of News.com: You were missed. And much discussed. No, we're not telling you what was said about you. Hope you enjoyed those Mission margaritas, babe, but let me tell you, nothing's sweeter than Valen's cocktails, and nothing's more bitterly delicious than North Beach gossip.

Did I mention that Brian Lam, my good friend, was a gadget expert? And that he lent me a camera?

Boutin checks Facebook by Blackberry.

I'm blogging, and yes, my cheeks are already a little red.

Your article is incorrect. Any laptop with an Intel 945GM or higher will play DVD-quality video just fine.

Hi, long time no talk Paul! It's too bad we didn't get to chat about my client XXXXXX before you wrote your article, because they would have been perfect for it since [347 more words about this].

I fail to see the point of the article. Everyone knows that yadda yadda etc. Simple.

As I read through the posts, I noticed a number of themes consistent with another writer I know. References to Natali Del Conte, Nick Denton, and, crucially, Armani sunglasses.

The brats at the Armani store didn't even know about my Armani Bono Red sunglasses. They're the same shades I wore on the Elevation tour, priced at a reasonable $145, and 40 percent of the take goes to help your brothers and sisters still suffering. Plus if you're a blogger and getting kind of wrinkly around the eyes, they're a lot cheaper than plastic surgery. My good friend Nick Denton in New York bought a pair for one of his gang who's a bit over the hill. The man looks fantastic now. Fox TV called him on to talk about Google for 15 minutes. God's truth. It was the shades.

And yet he even looks like Bono! Here's a screen cap from a recent Boing Boing TV episode — Boutin is towards the end if you want to see his take on lolcats.

Could he be responsible for these directionless diatribes about Red products and how important Bono is? Well, they've both got the self-important part down. I pinged Mr. Boutin to see what was up.

BulldogPup83: Hey Paul, did you read Fake Steve Jobs this weekend?
ArmaniGlasses: Read it? I fucking wrote it.
BulldogPup83: I knew it!
BulldogPup83: Natali Del Conte and your silly sunglasses totally gave you away.
ArmaniGlasses: FOX cancelled on me though.
ArmaniGlasses: I think they found out I'm a libertarian which effectively means a Republican, and their whole idea was to have some whiny liberal blogger from San Francsico on to go WAAAHHHHH GOOGLE IS TOO POWERFUL.
ArmaniGlasses: What was your question again?
BulldogPup83: Oh nothing. Just saying hi.
ArmaniGlasses: Natali gave me away? I'm going to kill her.
ArmaniGlasses: Oh wait, she'll do that goddam scream if I do, aieee.
BulldogPup83: I know you think she's awesome and all, but do you really think that Bono would know who she is?
BulldogPup83: He barely knows who the other members of U2 are, never mind Natali Del Conte.
BulldogPup83: total giveaway
ArmaniGlasses: and you giiiiiiive yourself awwaaayyyy, and you giiiiiive yourself awaaaayyyyy, and you give ...
BulldogPup83: Thanks for the help, I appreciate your time Mr. Boutin
ArmaniGlasses: Wow, I haven't been called "Mr Boutin" since the last time the NY Times mentioned me.
BulldogPup83: I suspect you can have me killed. Must be respectful.
ArmaniGlasses: Xeni on line 1 here, gotta hop
ArmaniGlasses: toodles

And we're not talking real Steve Jobs. We're not talking Fake Steve Jobs. We're talking Steve friggin' Wozniak. Bokay? I asked Boutin to explain this disgraceful display, captured last night at a book-tour appearance where Woz introduced Fake Stevester Dan Lyons, but Boutin just messaged back "woz pic grt on bbry tlk l8r!" (Photo by Brendan McKenna)

Isn't it just like Woz to show up and try to steal the spotlight from me on my big day? He's like the ex-girlfriend who shows up at the wedding dressed in a really hot sexy red dress, trying to take attention away from the bride. Fair enough. Apple geeks love Woz better than me. Always have. So of course he can't resist showing up on iPhone day to steal some of the love that was supposed to be aimed entirely at me. Plus, and this is really sad, Woz just thrives on the adulation and can't get enough of it. It's almost a sickness, the way he needs it.

"Sorry, your wireless Service Provider does not allow access to Facebook for your device." Sent from my Verizon Wireless Blackberry

The most ludicrous, self-defeating requirement — the one that prompted Boutin to detach himself from his keyboard and head downtown — was that journalists not publish the list until 9 a.m. Monday morning — a full two hours after TechCrunch itself said it would publish the list. Boutin, of course, did Calacanis a huge favor by doing so.

In reporting the publicly available list before TechCrunch40's unilaterally imposed embargo — an embargo, one should note, that Boutin never agreed to observe — Boutin actually gave TechCrunch40 a shot at gathering attention. Instead of being buried in the noontime news mix, the TechCrunch40 list hit the top of Techmeme first thing Monday morning.

So Boutin has inspired me. Shipley deserves the same kind of buzzmaking attention for her upcoming startup showcase. I know that the Demo lineup has been circulating. Why? Robert Scoble, for one, has been filming videoblog episodes with Demo participants all this week.

I can't make it down to San Diego, but if anyone gets their hands on the list, please drop me a line. Fair's fair. Help a girl out, won't you?

PaidContent.org founder Rafat Ali threw an NYC media party last night to celebrate his blog's first investment round. The "guys in nametags making pitches" reminded media pundit Jeff Jarvis of the bashes of the dot-com boom. The Gawker Media overlords were bouncing biz-dev people back and forth like Web 2.0 ping-pong. "All the hookups had the blandness of lesbian sex," said one attendee. "Nobody has any money, so there's no penetration."

Not everyone felt the same queasy deja vu. ZDNet writer Donna Bogatin felt the party was, well, too boring and productive to match those "just-for-fun" free-for-alls of the 90s. (Or Bogatin's learned to network since then.) Valleywag asked expert socialites: What makes a party a sign of the tech bubble? It boils down to the food, the drink, the entertainers, the partiers, and the scene.

The food
Spot On editor Chris Nolan (who welcomes Ali and GigaOM blogger Om Malik to the funded-content-site fold, which Spot On entered a year ago), has attended (and thrown) parties since her days as the Valley's gossip columnist. "You need free sushi," says Nolan, "and lots of it. And not veggie sushi, free raw fish. Made before your eyes by real Japanese guys."

"An entire table devoted to cheese, preferably with a cheese sommelier," says Business 2.0 online editor Owen Thomas, who wrote for the snarkzine Suck during the Bubble.

The drink
"It can't be a 90s bubble party without Absolut," says Dot-com marketer David Parmet. "Could we say Stormhoek is the new Absolut?" With marketing blogger Hugh MacLeod pimping this wine in the Valley through branded prints, blogging, and sponsored geek dinners, Stormhoek is the official drink of the Valley alcoholic.

The entertainers
Everyone agrees, the bands have to be cool. "Ask Jeeves had Elvis Costello," says Nolan. "AMD had Bob Dylan and his son's band, the Wallflowers. RSA had RunDMC. So you need some bought-and-paid-for musical talent. Or someone like Courtney Love, who showed up at TED one year."

Judging by that, the five-year party hasn't even started. "The bubble's on the way back," Nolan says. "But until I see Diana Krall cooing to the Flckr kids, I wouldn't get too excited."

Slate and Wired writer Paul Boutin says, "It's not a bubble-era blowout unless The Who's on first."

The partiers
Who shows up in a bubble party? "Hot chicks," says Thomas. "Specifically, hot chicks there to pick up free drinks and Internet billionaires. God, you're giving me flashbacks, STOP!"

Thomas also cites "the presence of anyone whose business card includes the words 'business development.' More than half the crowd works in public relations. The rest is looking for a new job."

Parmet goes glassy-eyed. "When you see Jeff Daschis of [profligate Internet marketer] Razorfish appear with Kyle and Chan of Agency.com on the balcony, kind of like Gatsby...then it's a bubble."

The scene
In the end, it's all about the memories. "The most over-the-top private party I went to," says Nolan, "was the one Amy and Ted Barnett threw at their house on [San Fran's] Dolores Street. Valet parking in the Mission District. Oyster in champagne shooters and everyone getting stoned in the backyard."

"When I'm using a piece of corporate shwag to funnel candy up my nose," says one tipster, "then the bubble is upon us."

Party like it's 1999: LAUNCH PARTY: Betting on One Big Night [Industry Standard]
Photo: Dance floor laugh [Mr. Wright at Flickr]

I got a round of applause (they were drunk) for suggesting this at dinner: Jared Paul Stern's mistake was trying to land one big covert deal, like MSN ad sales. The Web 2.0 approach is a transparent system of automated micropayments: You slap Paypal/Amazon donation buttons on each of Gawker's sites and label them "Keep Your Name off Valleywag."

Apple execs: I accept payment in iTunes money.