Why these three sites? To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did. … it would be naive to think that we can merely power through an advertising recession. We need to concentrate our energies … on the sites with the greatest potential for audience and advertising. 
    

Here’s the details:
* Buzznet, a music social network, is buying Idolator after snapping up its main rival Stereogum.

* Gridskipper is being taken over by urban info site Curbed. Gawker holds a stake.

* Wonkette, founded by Ana Marie Cox, will be spun off to managing editor Ken Layne and become part of the Blogads network of political sites like Daily Kos. 

Financial terms weren’t released.
    
That leaves Gawker with 12 sites, including its namesake media blog, Gizmodo, Valleywag and Defamer.

(Photo: Reuters)

McIntyre is the first to admit it’s hardly an exact science: “In short, the task of valuing the largest blogs is impossible. That makes it much more interesting than writing about the P/E at General Electric.”

A handful of the top blogs:

• Gawker: $150 million
• MacRumors: $85 million
• Huffington Post: $70 million
• PerezHilton: $48 million
• TechCrunch: $36 million
• ArsTechnica: $15 milion
• Drudge Report: $10 million
• Mashable: $10 million
• GigaOm: $8.4 million
• Boing Boing: $8 million
• Silicon Alley Insider: $5.4 million
• ReadWriteWeb: $5 million
• Paidcontent.org: $3.5 million