GateHouse Media honcho Kirk Davis stops just short of threatening a lawsuit, but tells Boston Daily he'll be watching the Globe's impending Mega-micro-hyperlocal Newton site with two eagle eyes, to make sure boston.com doesn't try to stomp on his Wicked Local territory. He even gets off a good crack about the 800-pound gorilla now being more like a 200-pound gorilla, which is kind of funny in an ironic sort of way, coming from a guy whose own employer's stock is now worth like negative 3 cents a share, but whatever.

And here I sit, wondering if the issue is simply one of scale. I link to and quote from Wicked Local sites all the time. While my motives are pure as the driven snow, (of course!), I do make money from this site. But I'm no financial threat to GateHouse, whereas the Globe, yeah, a bit of a different issue. Still, Google makes money from putting ads next to GateHouse content on its pages, too.

Dan Kennedy analyzes the brewing battle in more detail.

GateHouse had been using YouTube to post news videos, but now the video service that lets teenagers post videos of themselves stomping on other teenagers has decided to pull Wicked Local's video of the Beverly Gloucester-sucks floats, not because of the eight-foot long spurting penis, but because one person in the video complained to YouTube. Of course, you realize, this means war:

If YouTube is unwilling be a true media partner, then, at least for GateHouse, we will need to seek alternative means of distribution of our videos.

Of course, that assumes there will still be a GateHouse to fight YouTube.

Wicked Local to add social networking.

Via MetaBoston.

Dan Kennedy discusses how the stock of their parent company is plummeting and how Pat Purcell is looking pretty smart for having sold them all off.

DougH was amazed to see the Newton Tab headlined a story about a science group for middle-school girls:

Girls Gone Wild

He notes the headline was changed a tad for the online version.

The Globe reports GateHouse Media is laying off 35 employees and not filling 25 vacant positions at its Massachusetts papers - including the Quincy Patriot-Ledger, which cut 130 jobs last fall.

The Cambridge Chronicle has shut down comments on articles, following the lead of the Somerville Journal, which shut off coments after trolls poisoned stories about a baby and a crossing guard, and the Swampscott Reporter, which found itself deluged with hate comments about the local Little League.

David Harris at the Chronicle writes:

Unfortunately, we have shut down all comments on our Web site after months of commenters getting a little out of control. If you’re keeping score, we have been shutting down comments for all stories that involve crime, race, religion and other sensitive areas that could make one ignorant person go a little haywire. But these stories only involve a little piece of potentially inflammatory stories. In the meantime until we find a solution, you can still comment on our blog.

GateHouse Media is moving all the Town Online sites it inherited from the Herald (which inherited them from CNC) to its Wicked Local platform. For example, here's Wicked Local Roslindale. New look for the sites, as well - and commenting on all articles, which is cool and all, but will a newspaper ever figure out that maybe you should be aggregating all those comments into a central discussion area as well, rather than just leaving all these threads hanging out all over the place, forcing people looking for a good argument to skip all over the place?

Also: Given that GateHouse papers surround Boston like a donut, it would be cool if the search tool gave you the option to limit your search by paper or community. If I'm on the Roslindale site, and I search on "Washington Street," chances are pretty good I don't want to see links to stories about Washington Street in Canton.

So recently we learned that Lola, the Globe's impending transvestite fanzine women's fashion magazine, will feature a petite size that's convenient and small enough to fit in a purse.

Apparently GateHouse Media thinks gals want something larger, something that can handle D cells, at least (thanks, Swirlygrrl, thanks a lot). Next month, the owner of Boston's suburban newspapers (OK, and the Parkway Transcript) beats Lola to market with a women's magazine called Skirt:

... The magazine will focus on profiles of women in the community, don't-miss events and highlights of products from local shops. The publication's oversized format, lively graphics and creative presentation are designed to make advertising and content work together in a way that captures the reader. ...

So which size will win?

You can get a taste of Skirt at its new Web site (the magazine has actually been around since 1994; GateHouse is licensing the thing from a Southern newspaper chain). I'm obviously not in the target audience, but, gah, all that script makes me want to poke my eyes out with a fork something fierce. Also, somebody should inform the publisher that unless your last name is Faulkner or Joyce, paragraphs are a good idea.

Gatehouse Media unwrapped its new Town Online sites today (Newton as an example; Roslindale as another).

First impression: Nice, clean design, but putting a couple more stories on the home pages might give the impression there's more that's actually happening in these communities. Also, some weird stylesheet action going on - at first, you get a header and then a blank, brown screen, then the contents pop in (there's also what looks like a first-day publishing bug - at least on the Roslindale and Newton sites, there's no news on the news page). Also, here's hoping that they eventually give users the ability to comment directly on stories (and that these are then collected into forums).

But where's my police blotter? I can't live without my Roslindale/West Roxbury police action! Oh, there it is - it's listed as a sub-tab on the news page. I'm betting that most Town Online readers would rather see Police and Fire as a main tab than "Multimedia," which I bet few people will actually click on.