Nick Denton's Gawker Media blog empire has launched a new blog, Sploid.com, that will challenge Matt Drudge for leadership in the "online news/gossip/investigative reporting/scaremongering Web space."

Nick Denton, named by the Wall Street Journal earlier this year as one of the newsmakers to watch in 2005, describes what he has in mind for Sploid:

"Sploid is a news site with a tabloid mentality -- top stories up top, played big, as fast as they break. If there's a political line, it's anarcho-capitalist -- sniffing out hypocrisy and absurdity, whether from salon left or religious right... We want to occupy the space between the whiny left and the ranting right. Drudge is very good. It will probably take us 10 years to catch up with his level of traffic."

For more on the trashy, sensationalist blogging that's ready to take over New York publishing circles, check out the New York Observer article called "Bloggorhea." The name says it all...