Peter Merholz speculates about the applicability of the Gawker model to other cities:
What would a Berkeley Gawker be? An Austin Gawker? Obviously, they’d take on the regional flava… I don’t think Berkeleyites would be nearly as obsessed with Prada and J. Lo (thankfully).
Much as I’d love to help put out an Oakland weblogmagazine as hip and linkworthy as the Gawk, I somehow doubt that this perennial underdog of a city could summon up the chutzpah, let alone the advertising dollars needed to make a go of it.
Peter speculates about a Berkeley or East Bay publication, and that might make more sense, but then isn’t San Francisco the obvious central market for any venture of this type in this region? The lively comments on his post seem to favor more grassroots or network-y approaches, mentioning John Hiler’s CityBlogs project along with other site-specific blog-aggregators.