Gawker Media is privately held, mostly by its founder Nick Denton, and it doesn't reveal its earnings. But it's clear from the omnipresence of major brand marketers on its network of blogs, and its traffic -- 17.8 million monthly uniques and more than a quarter billion monthly page views -- that it's become a huge business. Huge enough to go toe-to-toe with Apple without really breaking a sweat.

Held in the Grand Hyatt New York and the Time & Life building, the conference spanned two business days, from Wednesday, Oct. 14, to Thursday, Oct. 15. Wednesday focused on General Sessions and was geared toward industry leaders and magazine executives and editors. Sessions carried apocalyptic titles such as “The Future of Content” and “The End of the Media World as We Know It.”

In an effort to avoid the apocalypse, the Observer attended only the second day of panels, which were divided into three parts: Consumer Marketing, Ad Sales Marketing and Editorial. The Observer sat in on the second half of the Editorial panels.

The Observer joined the conference during Billboard editorial director Bill Werde’s lecture, titled “Interstitial: What Happened to the Record Album and Why It Matters to Magazines.” More Jerry Seinfeld than Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Werde charmed the audience of disgruntled magazine editors, opening with the disclaimer, “Yes, I am a journalist whose last name is Werde [pronounced wordy]; you’d be surprised how much publicists love that.” Illustrated by a powerpoint of line graphs that looked more like the outlines of multicolored mountain ranges than the demise of the music industry, Mr. Werde drew a correlation between the record industry and the magazine industry. “We can learn from this!” he announced both imperatively and with excitement. “I feel like the ghost of Christmas future.”

But the final panel of the conference, “The Decline and Rise of Magazine Journalism,” was what the Observer really came for. It was moderated by Slate Group chairman and editor in chief, Jacob Weisberg; members of the panel included Nick Denton of Gawker Media, “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco and New Yorker articles editor Susan Morrison. Mr. Weisberg began the panel with open-ended questions such as “Do readers prize what we do as journalists?” and “Are magazines like newspapers in that a great business has turned into a very bad business?”

Mr. Dumenco volunteered hopefully, “The magazine industry is nowhere near as desperate as the newspaper industry.”

But Mr. Weisberg’s realism was unrelenting. “But what about the surveys that show that 20-somethings are not only going to the Web for newspapers but also for service-related magazines?" he asked. "The real problem with young people is that they aren’t just not reading it now, but they say they will never read a newspaper. Which means there is no hope for future generations.”

“O.K., but here’s the thing,” Ms. Morrison piped up, “the question isn’t do these readers exist, but, do they exist in a way that we can make any money off of them? Because the young people I encounter all read the newspaper; they just have never picked it up in print.”

Mr. Weisberg redirected to a more general query: “But what does the magazine mean right now? Is it a new form?”

Ms. Morrison sighed, “I think we are all kind of experimenting. You know, I’m old, but I don’t want to read a 12,000-word piece online, I want to read it on paper. But that is changing. Like David Grann’s recent article about Cameron Todd Willingham, the executed arsonist in Texas—it is a piece of typically long-form journalism, but we put it up online because we wanted it to create waves, we wanted it to be discussed and shared, and the easiest way to do that was to make it accessible online and email-able. And it was our most emailed story of all time!”

She continued, musing aloud: “One of the reasons John Updike wanted to be a novelist was just about the thingy-ness of the book. And I think that’s true of the magazine. It’s a thing we can go out and buy and hold. Will that be true for a future generation?”

Nick Denton jumped in: “It is also a question of when you tend to read something. You read news on the Web during the work day, you save magazines for the weekends. It’s a different reading mode. So, in that way magazines are better off than newspapers. When I think about launching a new Web site, I go to newsstands and look at how many magazines there are in each category. I don’t look at newspapers.”

This offered an opportunity for Mr. Weisberg to ask Mr. Denton about his Web sites, and whether Gawker Media is going to have to adjust “the digital sweatshop model” that his employees currently work under.

“We pay more than you’d expect!," said Mr. Denton. "And kids want to work for us, and we want them. The average age of our readers is 28, about thirty years younger than the average newspaper reader. It is important that the people writing and editing are of the same generation.”

Mr. Weisberg then asked Mr. Denton about how he monitors and fact-checks the content on his sites.

“We don’t,” Mr. Denton replied flatly. “We aim to get the truth over time. The verification model is post-publication rather than pre-publication. Our readers correct us and we apologize and we change it. We don’t have time to check it all before.”

Towards the end of the panel, Mr. Weisberg returned to Ms. Morrison: “How does The New Yorker stay on top of fact checking and accuracy as they try to enter into the up-to-the-minute online sphere?” he asked

“We try to edit every single thing that goes on the Web site,” said Ms. Morrison.

Mr. Denton was shocked. “Even the Twitter posts!?”

“We have Twitter posts?,” said Ms. Morrison. “I didn’t even know we were doing Twitter posts. Who tweets?”

Weisberg proffered one final comment, more musing than a question demanding an answer. “How do the mobile devices we all carry around with us affect this discussion?”

He touched his pocket as if to check that his own mobile device was still there.

For the past several months, Mr. Abrams—the chief legal analyst for NBC News and head of the nascent media strategy firm Abrams Research—has been meeting with various New York-based media reporters, editors, and bloggers about the potential editorial venture.

To date, nobody has signed on for the job.

"I think it’s very possible that I will pursue an on-line Web property that will include some level of blogging of and about the media," Mr. Abrams confirmed to The Observer on Wednesday afternoon. "But we’re still not there yet."

"It is true that I have talked to a number of people about creating what I view as an on-line home for members of the media," he added. "I've had some really informative, instructive conversations with some really interesting people. I’ve learned a lot from them."

Mr. Abrams declined to say whom he had met with. But the Observer has learned the list of writers and editors who've spoken to Mr. Abrams includes Gawker's politics editor Alex Pareene, Advertising Age 'Media Guy' columnist Simon Dumenco, former New York Magazine senior editor Jesse Oxfeld, Portfolio's Mixed Media blogger Jeff Bercovici, and The Observer's own John Koblin.

So far none of the conversations have resulted in a hiring.

"We talked," confirmed Mr. Oxfeld, who's been consulting on the relaunch of Next Book and freelancing since he was laid off from New York in December. "It's a really interesting offer but not what I'm looking for."

"It was flattering to be asked,” said Mr. Pareene. “People are working there that I like and respect."

When Mr. Abrams announced the creation of Abrams Research in November, he told The Observer that 650 people had applied to become "experts" in various areas of the media and that he hoped to one day amass 20,000 names of "TV, online media, and print people" willing to offer, as the company's Web site advertises, "insights, data and personnel never before available to businesses for image enhancement, branding, investigative reporting and the execution of the best media plan."

Which of these things is not like the other? The idea of a firm that advises businesses on media strategy employing working journalists who would continue simultaneously to do journalism attracted its share of criticism from, well, journalists. Writing on New York's Daily Intel blog, Jessica Pressler asked, "Isn't this kind of the dark side?"

So how would the new editorial venture relate to the media strategy firm?

"I am always trying to find vehicles for my community of experts," said Mr. Abrams. "If and when I create an additional web property of and about the media, the editorial side of it will be entirely separate and distinct from Abrams Research, the business."

How would that work?

"I'm not going to get too specific," said Mr. Abrams. "I don't know all the answers yet. I'm certainly trying to think of ways to monetize it so that people who are members of the media and members of the Abrams Research network would be able to blog and write about their area of expertise."

Several candidates and less-sure prospects came away from conversations with Mr. Abrams with the impression that he wants to create something like a "Drudge meets The Huffington Post" site, full of screamer headlines—or maybe a "super-aggregator" covering all aspects of magazines, TV news, and digital media through an explicit "winners and losers" lens.

Sources quoted salaries ranging from $50,000 to $80,000, and responsibilities varied depending on the interviewee from overseeing a team of writers and free Huffington Post-style bloggers, to being part of a two-person blogging and aggregation team, to being a one-man band.

Several people said Mr. Abrams is seeking to maximize "S.E.O." (search engine optimization) and use the editorial product to drive users to become clients of Abrams Research.

"I've had a number of brainstorming sessions," said Mr. Abrams. "I think it is definitely premature at this point to be talking about staffing, salary, anything like that."

Several sources who spoke with Mr. Abrams about the job worried the job would put them off the track of journalism and on the track of P.R.; despite the harsh economic climate for journalism, it was a step they weren't yet quite ready to take. Once you go flack, they say, you never go back.

"I don't entirely understand what the Abrams' consulting company does," said one person. "It's sort of a P.R. firm. I don't want to work for a P.R. firm.”

Mr. Abrams said that his media strategy firm is already "very profitable," and that whether the editorial project will eventually take off will ultimately depend on business considerations.

"It's going to come down to whether it makes financial sense," said Mr. Abrams.

It should be noted that the Huffington Post, which was the subject of Simon Dumenco's Ad Age column today in which he estimated the aggregator and blog network's true value is considerably less than the $200 million figure bandied about last year, featured ads for the Blackberry Bold ("The fastest device on the 3G network," apparently), Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, an appearance by Arianna Huffington "And Huffpost bloggers" at the 92nd Street Y, and a rotating placement that has featured Classmates.com, Encore Wynn Las Vegas, Nike, and others.

Well, Ms. Huffington did tell The Times' Brien Stelter in March 2008 that her site aimed to be an "Internet newspaper."

Here's The Times' Richard Pérez-Peña's more nuanced take on his paper's new ad placement:

"Though he was kind of on the defensive, he might have put it more tactfully," said one Times man of the meeting, which had originally been set up to cultivate the relationship between the business section and the magazine.

"We're running more stories by Times staffers now than this magazine has in years," said Mr. Moss. "The meeting's purpose was to help the biz-day staff understand what we we're looking for and to explain some of the very different reasons we go outside of the paper when we do. I'm sorry if anything that I said was misinterpreted."

For a reporter who has fought his or her way into the ranks of The Times , writing a piece for The Times Magazine would seem to be a matter of course. Daily people also get paid extra for writing for the magazine–though less than a freelance writer, so there's the added incentive for the editor to control his budget by commissioning in-house. But for Mr. Moss there's the problem, as a source familiar with the magazine put it, that "some of [the daily reporters] are great writers and some of them are not."

"It's a trial-and-error thing," said the source. "There may be bad blood if a daily [writer's] story gets killed … they say, 'I hate the magazine. I got burned by them.'" Occasionally a Times Magazine editor is confronted with an angry daily mandarin who demands, "Do you know who you're dealing with?"

In short, Mr. Moss, who made his name at non-news-driven magazines like Esquire and his own start-up, the short-lived New York weekly 7 Days , has run up against The Times ' narcissistic intractability once again. As one Times writer put it, he was not an "esteemed Times bureaucrat," like previous editors Jack Rosenthal, Warren Hoge or James Greenfield, when he ascended to the post in 1998. And while Mr. Moss has been given more flexibility to create his own magazine, hiring editors from places like Money , New York and Lingua Franca , some daily people still think of the magazine the same way former executive editor Abe Rosenthal was said to, as the "Sunday supplement," and they mistrust the direction he is taking it in.

Which gets back to the writing. For Mr. Moss, it's a sticky situation: He has to be conscious of what he does and how it fits into the broader journalistic mandate of the paper and he has to alert his boss, executive editor Joe Lelyveld, to his plans. "The relationship between the magazine and the newspaper has always been tricky, and we've worked very hard on it," said Mr. Moss. "I think to pretty positive effect."

The New York Times ' Los Angeles-based cultural correspondent Neil Strauss is all about breaking through that fourth wall. While reporting on the music industry for the paper, he has co-written Marilyn Manson's autobiography, jumped into bed with Jewel for one of those impish profiles he pens for Rolling Stone , breakdanced with Beck for a profile in Spin and dabbled in stand-up comedy.

Now, with his friend Howie Statland from the New York band Thin Lizard Dawn, he's got a little music-performance art side project going. In fact, you might have seen the two performing their untitled piece on May 8 at P.S. 1, the alternative art museum in Long Island City. Mr. Strauss, playing anonymously as DJ Stress, spun records while Mr. Statland played what one audience member described as "soft-rock guitar." Meanwhile, there was a silent film playing and the whole space was surrounded by, as P.S. 1 described it, "chemical toilets that contain timeclocks, uniforms, pornography … and silent film projected onto Mylar screens."

The idea, apparently, was to tell the story of an unhappy guy who spends his time "collecting trash to build a family replacing the one he lost as a child." P.S. 1 described it as "reminiscent of [Andy Warhol's] 'Exploding Plastic Inevitable' performances in the late 60's," and said it was a collaboration between Anna Gabriel (daughter of pop star Peter Gabriel), Adria Petty (daughter of pop star Tom Petty) and Mr. Statland, who go collectively by the name "Low Flame." Mr. Strauss helped write some of the music, but one witness suggested he should stick to journalism.

"What can I say?" wrote Mr. Strauss, responding via e-mail. "Being a stand-up comedian helped me understand what comics go through when they're on stage trying to make a crowd laugh, and my experience last weekend definitely helped me sympathize with the musicians I review … For the record, though, my love is writing. Last weekend's shows were a one-time thing just for fun. That's why I did them anonymously. Thanks for blowing my cover."

Putative Zeitgeistmeister Jann Wenner has woken up and decided that the Internet is going to be big–big enough, anyway, to build an "old media"-style magazine around.

Mr. Wenner has made a career out of championing the things that have been important to him: rock music with Rolling Stone ; celebrity with Us ; family life with Family Life (which he later sold); and the rugged outdoors, first with Outside (which he also sold) and then with Men's Journal . For his Web magazine project, he has hired New York magazine features editor Simon Dumenco, who is also the editorial director of that weekly's Web site. Before that, Mr. Dumenco was Caroline Miller's executive editor at Seventeen , and then acting editor in chief after she jumped to New York .

Appropriately enough, Mr. Dumenco answered Off the Record's messages via e-mail: "I'll be helping to develop Internet-related products and strategies," he wrote. As for what the magazine would hold, he was coy: "We're looking at all sorts of possibilities; a magazine is one of those possibilities." A Wenner Media spokesman would only confirm Mr. Dumenco's imminent arrival. "He will be working with Mr. Wenner on a variety of Internet-related projects," she said. But what about the magazine? "That's one of the many projects we're looking at."

Sources familiar with Mr. Wenner's media company confirm that a consumer Web magazine is central to what Mr. Dumenco will be working on, though right now it's very early in the planning stages.

The news came as a bit of a surprise to some at Wenner Media, who until recently had e-mail but not much in the way of Web access. (The office scuttlebutt was always that Mr. Wenner didn't want them to goof off.) But since Mr. Wenner passed up investing in Netscape early and dismissed Louis Rossetto's idea for Wired as too service-unfriendly, according to a recent article in Salon , he has apparently decided that it's high time to jack into the Net. However, Mr. Dumenco is not expected to oversee the already-established Rolling Stone Network Web site, with its review and photo archive, and its 'N Sync and Jennifer Aniston discussion areas.

The idea for a magazine about the Web has been tried before, with mixed success–from The Web Magazine and Net Guide , which are both defunct, to Yahoo Internet Life and the Time Inc. spinoff Time Digital , which soldiers on. And this October, Mademoiselle is jumping on the bandwagon, polybagging a special issue about the Web and technology with their regular issue.

Joseph Bottum, the books and arts editor for The Weekly Standard , has finally been, in his words, "pushed over the edge." In an a memo he sent around to The Standard 's staff on May 3, he was set off by "my nickname [being] given for my first name and my last name misspelled, again–in the program for the White House Correspondents Dinner" on May 1. The program had it spelled "Jody Bottom." He was not pleased.

"We don't send out lists for formal occasions that use the nicknames of 'Bill' Kristol or 'Andy' Ferguson," he wrote, referring to two other editors. "So I want to stop The Standard doing it to me."

Mr. Bottum demanded that the magazine "enact a strict rule from now on … On everything that leaves this office, my last name must always be double-checked to make sure it is spelled with a 'u' instead of an 'o' and has no 's' on the end of it … On our masthead or as a byline for something I've written, it should be 'J. Bottum.' On all other occasions when my name is written down, it should be 'Joseph Bottum.' When we set up radio or TV programs, or think-tank debates, it should be 'Joseph' for lowbrow stuff and 'Dr. Bottum' for pretentious highbrow stuff. Strangers calling in should not be invited by our phone receptionists to call me 'Jody.'"

Got that?

When reached at The Standard , Mr. Bottum, who has a Ph.D. in medieval philosophy, got to the root of the problem: "I think it happens more often now because people use spell-checkers."