On Saturday, Gawker broke a big story: It ran a first-person account by a man named Robert Thomas who said Richard Heene (of balloon-boy fame) had talked about planning a hoax to get media attention and make himself famous. Not long thereafter, the local sheriff said the stunt was, indeed, a hoax.

Gawker got some attention for the fact that it paid Thomas for his story. But setting that aside, I want to applaud a small decision Gawker made in how it told the story.

Thomas’ story is about 2,000 words, and it’s a narrative. It spends a fair amount of time spinning backstory before getting to the juicy stuff. It was compelling reading if you were already fascinated by the balloon-boy tale, but it wasn’t a grabber for someone with a more casual interest.

So at the same moment the big Thomas piece was posted, Gawker also posted a bullet-laden summary of the piece — the CliffsNotes version of their own article.

As I write this, the full story has generated 480,000 pageviews and 189 comments. But the CliffsNotes version has generated another 39,193 pageviews and 83 com