Gawker Folds Defamer, Rolls It Into Flagship Site

Here's what should be the last step in Nick Denton's slimdown of his Gawker Media empire: The blog network is taking its LA-based Defamer site and rolling it up under its central Gawker title. The site's existing writers will leave, to be replaced by other Gawker writers and a new hire.

This is the second time Denton has folded up one of his sites and tucked it into his Gawker flagship--last fall he did the same thing with Valleywag, his Silicon Valley gossip title.

Given that Denton had previously put Defamer up for sale, it's not a stretch to conclude that there wasn't a ravenous appetite for a standalone Hollywood gossip site with decent if declining traffic (Quantcast puts Defamer's monthly unique visitors at one million. I had previously looked at Gawker Media's own stat page and concluded that February traffic was down from a year ago, but Denton points out that February isn't over yet--which means that this week's Oscar traffic should boost those numbers a bit).

Read more on AllThingsD