Two new sites from Gawker·Lifehacker and Gridskipper -- the two latest sites published by Gawker Media -- just went live.
Lifehacker is to software as Gizmodo is to hardware. I wanted the site myself, as a reader, because I'm a bit sick of all the download directories out there. Say you're looking for freeware to convert Word documents into a PDF: you end up downloading half a dozen applications to find the one without spyware or a heinous interface. In future, Lifehacker will be the guinea pig.
Gridskipper is a travel site with a difference. I don't know about you, but I find travel guidebooks almost entirely useless. They're comprehensive, and that's useless. I want not more recommendations, but fewer. Give me the three discount chic hotels in Paris, a couple of good sushi joints in Sao Paulo, four things to do over a weekend in Los Angeles. Wallpaper magazine does just that -- it provides those excellent city pullouts -- and I file them away. And I can never ever locate them when I'm about to hop on a plane. Gridskipper should be a little better organized than my filing system.
The editors of both sites are bloggers. Gina Trapani writes Scribbling.net -- a personal journal which often strays into technology. She's also one of the developers on Kinja, our blog of blogs. Andrew Krucoff you may know from Gawker, where he's been a guest writer. He also writes a personal site at The Other Page.
For those of you preoccupied by the business of weblog media, you'll see that both of the new sites have a launch sponsor: Sony Electronics on Lifehacker, and Cheaptickets on Gridskipper. We think it's Sony's first significant campaign on weblogs. There are more details in the trade press.
