Despite the global economic crisis and February being a traditionally very slow month for the network, online media company Gawker has fared much better than expected in both revenue and traffic, according to founder and owner Nick Denton's staff memo, paidContent reported. Ad revenues are up by 20 percent on this time last year and online traffic to the company's blogs reached nearly 300 millions views for February, a 34 percent increase from 2008.

This increase is attributed to larger ads and fewer, more concentrated sites. Last year Gawker sold four of its online properties - Gridskipper, Idolator, Wonkette and Consumerist. Operations were also tightened and staff cut at Valleywag, Defamer and Fleshbot sites.

According to the Wall Street Journal, smaller may be better in the current economic conditions. The article reveals the success of smaller online publishers, while larger companies continue to flounder as advertising revenue continues to disappear. Smaller sites SB Nation, Seeking Alpha Ltd. and HealthCentral Network, which aggregate and create information and news on sport, business and health, respectively, have all listed gains in both visitors and revenue.

These sites operate to provide unique content with little financial investment, needing less advertising revenue to function. As a result large media brands, desperate for cheap alternatives, are looking to these sites for distribution.

SB Nation, a boutique sports Web site, recorded a 15 percent rise in visitors in January, totalling 3.4 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The site has recently launched a partnership with Yahoo Sports and as of last week with USA Today of Gannett Co.

Chief Executive of SB Nation Jim Bankoff told the Wall Street Journal that revenue is rising 25% a month.

Bankoff credits the success to the cost effective business model, "This model only works if you have a cost structure to enable it to work," he said.

Advertisers are also beginning to recognise the growing popularity of such sites. SB Nation recently began selling ads to regional cable service The New England Sports Network. The network bought advertising space on the sites Boston Celtics blog, seeking to target New England Sports fans.

"We're looking for the best targeted experience that we can get," said Michael Hall, director of new media for the company, according to the Wall Street Journal.