The Smoking Gun business model works

The Smoking Gun, the 11-year-old blog that specializes in digging up public documents and mug shots, has created a business model online that works, says PBS media columnist Mark Glaser.

He reports that the site logged 5.7 million unique visitors last month with its outing of the bogus LA Times Tupac Shakur story and the photographs of Eliot Spitzer's prostitute. The Smoking Gun is still run by only three people, but manages to pull in about 3.75 million unique visitors per month, says its founder, William Bastone.

The site stands out because unlike many blogs it has stuck with original reporting rather than leaning heavily toward opinion.

The New York Times media columnist David Carr also did an interesting profile of the site recently.