Gawker: valleywag, ben lerer

Huffington Post flogs its chairman's son's site

Paul Boutin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:00:00 EDT

The Huffington Post has a guy who emails me if I typo their URL in a Valleywag entry. So I doubt it's a lack of managerial attention that allowed a brazen advertorial for Thrillist's new Miami edition to run on the HuffPo Tuesday. I wouldn't have noticed if Portfolio hadn't called it out as a violation of the site's own user agreement. But read Portfolio's summary of the situation and ask yourself how many outraged HuffPo editorials would appear if anyone remotely related to Sarah Palin were to get this kind of play on Little Green Footballs:

Portfolio media blogger Jeff Bercovici says:

In making his pitch, Kearney clearly violated section 3.iv of Huffpo's user agreement, which forbids bloggers to "post advertisements or solicitation of business." (While bloggers often use Huffpo to promote their books or personal blogs, there's usually at least some pretense that they're writing about a larger topic.)

But maybe Thrillist is a special case, since its co-founder, Ben Lerer, is the son of Huffpo chairman Ken Lerer? I emailed Huffpo editor Roy Sekoff and its head of PR to ask about this but have yet to receive an explanation.

It's not the first time Huffpo has served as a promotional platform for Thrillist. Back in June, Huffpo's Living section editor, Verena von Pfetten, blogged about going on an all-expenses-paid junket to Las Vegas courtesy of Thrillist and JetBlue. Her post failed to mention the Lerer family connection. Rachel Sklar, who covers media for Huffpo, also accepted the junket and wrote it up for Radar. And Thrillist and Huffpo are close in another sense as well: They share office space in Soho.

Thrillist beats Digg to win coveted gender ratio title in battle of Internet Week parties

Jackson West — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:20:00 EDT

Caroline McCarthy made it out alive from the Diggnation "sausage fest" in Brooklyn last night, where fanboys expressed their latent homoerotic desires by mobbing Digg founder Kevin Rose. She proceeded to the Thrillist party, where a more heteronormative mix were "Gettin' Jiggy With It" and indulging in founder Ben Lerer's boom nostalgia for when his dad Ken was an executive during AOL's heyday. [News.com]

DailyCandy backer overheard in sale talks with Yahoo

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:20:27 EDT

Will one-time AOL exec Bob Pittman sell email newsletter DailyCandy to Yahoo? That's what DailyCandy execs are said to have discussed over dinner last week at the Village Restaurant in New York. Ben Lerer, publisher of Thrillist, another online publication backed by Pittman, told us he's heard no talk of a sale. But, tellingly, he was very curious to know what we've heard. That's because while Yahoo might be a surprise suitor, Pittman's desire to sell DailyCandy is no secret. In 2006, the WSJ reported Pittman had put DailyCandy on the block, hoping to sell his $3.5 million investment for more than $100 million. If the dinner happened, it's surprising Pittman didn't clue Lerer in. Ben's dad Ken, a cofounder of the Huffington Post, was a close ally of Pittman at AOL.

Thrillist expands to Las Vegas

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:38:47 EST

Founder Ben Lerer tells us Thrillist will announce a Las Vegas version of its email guide to restaurants, bars and culture tomorrow. 'Cause you were so worried you'd find nothing to do on your next Sin City business trip, right? Mock the idea if you like (and we do), but you've got to admire former AOL Time Warner COO Bob Pittman's choice in Web investments. Thrillist does nothing but grow. Subscribers are up 500 percent to nearly 300,000 so far this year.

An email list might seem too 1999 for geeks more apt to find a new nightspot via Yelp or Twitter. But even though most of Silicon Valley has written off email for good, delivering its content over the ubiquitous technology seems to work for Thrillist. As Lerer notes, because readers have to sign up for Thrillist, "advertisers value impressions we deliver much differently." By differently, he means more.

We like Lerer — so much so that we're going to help him move into the 21st century. Any number of services allow you to convert email subscriptions into RSS feeds. Valleywag has signed up for Thrillist SF at one such website, Mail2RSS.org. The feed is here.

(Photo by kyle simourd)