Gawker, reborn

Have you noticed that Gawker, as guest-edited by Andrew Krucoff, has been top-notch this week? Quite aside from speaking volumes about Krucoff's general fabulousness, I think we can also conclude that:

• Blogs are not as writer-dependent as we might have thought when Denton and Spiers first launched Gawker. Denton's now three for three with Spiers, Sicha and Krucoff, and there's no reason to believe that he couldn't find more where they came from, if necessary. Similarly, Gizmodo is just as good now as it was under Pete Rojas.
• In fact, bloggers can get burned out: Spiers got sick of doing Gawker towards the end of her tenure, and Gawker's been getting a little bit stale as Choire has concentrated on other projects, both inside and outside Gawker Media. It's worth noting that Andrew Sullivan takes a month off every summer to recharge.

Advantage Denton, in the Denton v Calacanis blog wars: better to build a brand which can be written by anyone, than try to make superstars out of your staff. Even if they're great to start with, there's no guarantee they'll be able to keep up the pace and freshness over the long term. Calacanis says that Denton risks losing his writers when a better offer comes along; what Denton hasn't said and Calacanis hasn't worried about is that Denton can fire his writers if they become boring or stale. Calacanis, I think, would find that much more difficult.