Despite being launched last week to reader upset and (somewhat traditional, admittedly) cries of abandoning the sites for good, Gawker Media’s Nick Denton is so confident that the line-wide redesign isn’t going to negatively affect the sites’ pageviews in the longterm that he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Denton has taken a bet offered by Rex Sorgatz that Gawker’s pageviews will not be lower than the current 510 million pageviews per month.
Denton will pay $10 for every million under that target, or $1000 if the redesign is significantly changed before the October 1st deadline, which will count as forfeiting the bet. If the audience grows because of the change, Sorgatz will pay $10 per additional million.
Considering the rocky launch of the redesigns last week – io9.com, one of the first sites to launch the new look, immediately lost 33% of its readership amidst complaints of poor UI, slower load times, the new design not working on certain browsers or mobile devices and bugs in the programming – its a bold move, but Denton has a history of making bold moves that bring predictions of disaster, only to be proved successful in the end, so who knows how this will end up?
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