The front-page of Gawker today makes me sad

In case you missed it, after today, Gawker.com will cease operations. It is the ending to a very long legal battle that bankrupted the site and its owner.

While historians and archivists race against the clock to save the site from disappearing altogether, the rest of us are left to read the many tributes and articles streaming onto its front page. It truly is a mixed bag. Both love, hate, disgust, amazement, and history being recounted as we speak on that front page. If you've been reading blogs for the past decade online, there's at least some part of blogging culture and news media that was directly influenced by this site (either through writing style, headline baiting, or just pure crass). I didn't agree with most of what this site did, but their insistence on being the rare un-edited version of news and opinion made them a notable figure that will be missed.