Gawker Media is shrinking, according to this post by Gawker Head Honcho Nick Denton.

We have some commentary over at The Blog Herald.

“He’s dead, Jim”

New ownership, site traffic down nearly 50%, and even Alexa shows the end.

Farewell, JOAB. I unsubscribed today.

Syntagma Media is holding a funeral for a few blogs.

BlogMedia, Inc. announces some staff and blog lineup changes:

As we came upon our four month anniversary, it has become clear that being bleary-eyed at all hours of the day and trying to be all things to each other – and to our audiences – that we had to take a hard look around and choose a path.

For some of our team, their heart was with the consulting world. The ability to design, to guide others, to create a beautiful blog out of what was a boring WordPress or Movable Type theme – or the joy inherent in helping a client achieve what they set out to do.

For others, their heart was with the creation of news, of building a community, of sharing their passion for blogging and other topics that we cover in the network.

The Man Blog, having joined 9rules only in January, announced today that they are quitting 9rules:

In as much as we appreciate the exposure that 9rules has given us, we regret to inform all our readers(both of you) that starting today, we are giving up our membership in the said network as a result of a difference in philosophy. We’re dicks and well, they’re a bunch of pussies. Normally that combination works. However, we are talking attitude and frame of mind here, not body parts. So it is clear that things cannot work out between 9rules and The Man blog.

Read the rest in order to get the full story and the punchline.

WorkBoxers, a member of Paul Scriven’s Fine Fools network, is closing:

WorkBoxers is closing.

Scrivs has decided that with this site being such a personal site for him, he doesn’t want to see it neglected any further. Even though I have held up the blogging responsibilites and kept it alive, he doesn’t have time to contributue and would prefer it closed up and shipped. Obviously I cannot just take over as quite a few posts are the property of Scrivs. We are undecided as to what will happen, either I take my posts somewhere else or we end up selling it and splitting the amount.

Blogebrity reports that 9rules has booted Gadgetopia and Om Malik’s Gigaom:

Gadgetopia and Om Malik are officially gone….still waiting for a full manifest of the departed from 9rules, who first delivered news of the 9rules weight loss plan just over a week ago.

Gadgetopia has this to say about their departure from 9rules:

We got tossed out of The 9 Rules Network this morning, which is disappointing. We couldn’t stay because we belong to FM Publishing. It was one or the other, and we chose to stay with FM.

[...]

And this morning, the email came. It’s too bad — I liked being a part of 9 Rules. But this is probably the future of blog networks. We’re going to descend into tribes, with each one jockeying for position. You belong to one or the other.

The 9rules team has this to say on their official blog:

When we started this Network a question that came up a number of times was why we didn’t let any site into the Network. There is strength in numbers right? We didn’t take that approach because we wanted our Network to stand for something and we chose quality content as that one common theme. As we have grown over the last couple of months there have been other issues that we have had to deal with concerning our brand and image and how it affects our memebers and readers that have entered into the equation of how we select a site.

Through all of this we also know that our members have lives and their sites aren’t priority #1. Some sites start to lose some of the qualities that made them members in the first place. Some take a different route with their content, while others just stop posting. It’s called “life” and it happens. However, we understand our members are only helped out by us when our image is strong and the sites within the Network have the qualities that our readers have come to expect.

Yes, what this means is that some sites will be removed from the Network. This is not an easy thing to do at all because I have become good friends/acquaintances with many of the members in the Network. However, this is something that many members have been asking for a while now and an issue I brought up a couple of months ago within the forums so really it’s nothing new. There are also two other new policies (if you wish to use that corporate term) that we are putting in place.

There’s much more on their post including explanations on their new rules/guidelines.

Other commentary on the web – beginning with Tyme White’s Not Too Geeky:

Hello, my name is Tyme White and I am the Community Director of 9rules, Inc. My job is to foster interaction within the Communities, keep the members happy…you get the gist. When I was appointed the position I took it seriously, went into business mode and started interacting with the members but more importantly the readers who read their content. Because I want everyone to read 9rules Communities.

It didn’t take long for me to start noticing some problems and unfortunately receiving complaints. The loudest from readers was sexually explicit adult content being mixed in with non-adult themed content – with no warning. Because I’m not uploading a bunch of email here is the first one I received Jan 24. and the last one I received yesterday. There are more and I received permission to post these minus the email address.

So I mentioned this to Scrivs in January and he said he would deal with it. I suggested perhaps an adult warning on the content. He said he would deal with. I mentioned it again – being dealt with. Rinse and repeat. Fast forward to this weekend. Meme from GirlSpoke made a post in the private forums voicing concerns about significant drops in traffic. I can only imagine how Scrivs felt when he read her comment since he was the one trying to find a way to keep the site in the network.

Tyme’s site also claims that the aforementioned Sex Blog Network is not a 9rules project. The official question: Is it? Or isn’t it?

On a side note, our personal guess is that the Man Blog will be the next to get booted.

Tipsters: Contact us if you are aware of any other sites being booted from 9rules

We were hit on the tipline tonight with a note about 9rules booting sites. That didn’t sound very community-like to me, so we commenced a little investigating and learned the following:

• 9rules sites will only be allowed to be in 9rules – and not in any other content network. Blogs must make a decision where they want to be.
• All adult oriented or sexually explicit sites will be removed.
• Sites that don’t continue to meet the “quality” that 9rules stands for will be removed
• All sites are currently being reviewed and are subject to being removed.

The info we received also confirmed that 9rules is involved in the upcoming sex blog network project – contrary to the statements of some that this was not a 9rules project.

One of the sites booted is Girl Spoke, Scrivs’s favorite site back in October.

Are you aware of other sites booted? Hit us on our tipline.

More coverage: Jack of All Blogs

2/15 Update:We have confirmed that 9rules is not involved in creating a sex blog network. Our apologies for any confusion this post may have caused.

Scrivs writes about shrinking Fine Fools:

If you look at the sidebar on the right you will notice that the Fine Fools box only contains four sites now:

• Sexerati
• Damn I’m Cute
• It’s Useless
• A Man’s View

Oh my god, what happened?! Everyone has left Fine Fools! Well, not really. When 2006 rolled around I had a lot of time to sit down and look at everything that I am responsible for and what direction that I wanted to take things. When looking at Fine Fools I saw a Network that more and more people were talking about and one where I admit to not helping reach its full potential because it had simply outgrown me and broke so many rules that I myself had established for blog networks. What I had was about 10 great blogs with 10 writers who were doing an excellent job of writing content, but every topic was different. The 9rules brand (in my eyes) is quality content and helping readers find it, but I had no idea what the Fine Fools brand was because every site was so different.