Exciting news for the New York Times: They've just inherited a highly-trained ETP operative to run their newest, freakiest blog! Former ETPer Melissa Lafsky and the Steves she calls boss have officially made the jump to the NYT with the Freakonomics blog — the brand-new jewel in the Opinion Section's bloggy online crown, to the extent that jewels are economically viable and an efficient way of expressing and conveying wealth.
Freakonomicizers Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (the aforementioned collectively-expressed "Steves" as above) officially merged their site today with the NYT (where it all began, btw, back when apples weren't oranges), after hiring Lafsky back in April to assist in taking the site bigtime (she tells us that "our feedburner has gone from around 60K when I started to 110K now," which must mean that somewhere, there are more abortions and/or less crime). Since then they have apparently had many meetings, culminating in what the NYT seems to promise is the first of many subsumations of external blogs to the site, if subsumations is a word and we're gonna go with "yeah." But don't take our word for it, believe Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager, NYTimes.com: "The Freakonomics deal is part of a larger strategy to expand our content offerings through smart alliances and acquisition. This blog is a natural fit for NYTimes.com because, like our audience, Freakonomics readers are highly curious and engaged in the topics of the day."
In other words, they're supa-freaky. Well, it is a very kinky blog.
Freakonomics: The Hidden Side of Everything [NYT]
Gotta Move With The Times [Opinionistas]
Previously:
She's Supa-Freaky! Melissa Lafsky Is New Freakonomics Website Editor [ETP]