Gawker's Kinja retreat is more evidence publishers struggle as tech companies

Technical competency (specifically around APIs and internal platform development) is no longer optional. It's not something you can just outsource to a vendor either; it's got to be a core part of your operating model or else your competitors will steal your clients by being easier to integrate against.

This means that many companies we think of as "tech companies" will need to redefine themselves in terms of the problems they solve. This has started to happen as well - Amazon is a merchant, Microsoft is a business services company, Apple is a consumer electronics company and Google is an advertising vendor. Their tech platforms all exist to support their core businesses - not the other way around. Incidentally, this is why "Google" became "Alphabet" -- new products under the "Google" umbrella were being tainted by its revenue base (and thus, internal political power base - he who controls the revenue makes the decisions) in advertising. Customers just expect a technology-enhanced experience in each of these areas.