Pajamas Media is dead

Looks like Pajamas Media lost the war against Old Media. They cut loose their much vaunted "army of Davids" and are sending them back to the "free market" to monetize their own blogs. The troops, at least those who became dependent on the income, aren't happy. Can't blame them really. It's not really a good time to be searching for new revenue streams.

The guys at the top of the food chain are saying the advertising arm was losing money since day one. Guess those rumors about $7 million in VC must have been true then, because they managed to keep it going for a long time. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did. I always thought it was a bad business model based on unrealistic assessments of their reach and influence. I seem to recall the phrase "tipping point bloggers" being bandied about with some frequency in the beginning but really it was never really much more than an echo chamber.

The main portal is still alive at this point, but the word is they're going to sink their resources into talking head videos featuring their remaining new media stars like Insty, his wife and Joe the Plumber. Apparently they believe people will pay to subscribe for the privilege of watching them. Not even their fans believe that's going to work.

The main portal will live as long as Roger is willing to sink his money into it, but can this new model turn a profit? Good luck with that. It will be interesting to see how magnanimously the middle managers, who still have a job right now, will be talking when the next downsizing hits them. The economy being what it is, I'm guessing that day may come sooner than they think.

Update: While I feel some empathy for their anxiety over losing their income, and am not rejoicing in their misfortune, now that Wolcott has said it, I have to admit to a tiny bit of schadenfreude. After all, these are the same people who promoted the dim-witted economic policies that got us into this mess.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]