A few months ago nobody but the hardcore surfers knew her. Today it's a cliché to write about her, there's so little left to say. That's how quickly Elizabeth Spiers shot from anonymously clever blogger to celebrity quipster. She "got her start" you see, on a once "relatively obscure" web site, or - pardon the overworn moniker - blog known as "Gawker". Gawker is described best by Spiers on her ex-blog Capital-influx:
"it's basically a New York-centric gossip blog. I pick stories from local news sources and make up snarky commentary, and Nick posts things that are actually useful and/or interesting. Nick describes it as "Romenesko meets the NY Observer." (Or - if you live outside of New York and have no idea what the Observer is, think Spy magazine. If you have no idea what Spy is, well, I can't help you.)"
(This description was posted 12.15.02, three days before Gawker officially launched.)
The web, as anyone with a high-speed surf-friendly connection has noticed, is a much smaller place these days. Ten years ago when we were first dialing out into uncharted sites, it seemed a freeway with infinite rest stops - an everlasting gobstopper. You could surf all day, until the cows came home it seemed, and never see the same thing twice. Not so much now. My own informal yet slightly scientific (I used percentages) poll of friends, family and my plumber revealed that the average Jane and Joe surf pretty much the way they read the newspaper: Headlines, sports, and gossip. Which is part of why Gawker became such an overnight smash hit (acknowledged by Entertainment Weekly, Time and Forbes on various types of "it" lists). The other part is, of course, Spiers.
If you've seriously never heard of Gawker (you're kidding, right?) click on that little blue link right now. I guarantee you'll go back - maybe a couple times a week at first, but soon you'll be refreshing like a maniac. Gawker is witty, smart, loaded with gossip and in the spirit of blogs, has a community feel that the E channel just doesn't. You feel like you're one big family at Gawker, always in on the joke, which Spiers fast and furiously knocks out. And her peers not only took notice, but hired her. It didn't take anyone long to recognize that her charm is in her bite and her bite hooks readers by the netful. Page Six - arguably Gawker's biggest competitor - played "if you can't beat hire 'em" and has her guest gossip frequently.
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