Valleywag

Valleywag is a Gawker Media blog with gossip and news about Silicon Valley personalities. It was initially launched under the direction of editor Nick Douglas in February 2006; after Douglas was fired [http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/memo-why-valleywag-sacked-its-editor/ Why Valleywag Sacked its Editor] , New York Times, November 14, 2006.] the blog was taken over by Owen Thomas. It has broken some stories, such as the leaking of a Gene Simmons sex tape. However, it has been criticized for broadcasting unsubstantiated and damaging gossip about people who are not in the public eye, such as a college intern who falsely called in sick to work and had it publicized across the Internet by Valleywag. [http://valleywag.com/tech/your-privacy-is-an-illusion/bank-intern-busted-by-facebook-321802.php Bank intern busted by Facebook] , valleywag.com]

Background

Valleywag launched in February 2006 with editor Nick Douglas. Rather than a Silicon Valley insider, Gawker Media's Nick Denton deliberately chose an unknown outsider.Fact|date=May 2008 As a college student, Douglas had edited a blog-focused gossip blog called Blogebrity.Fact|date=May 2008

In its first post, Valleywag outed the fact that Google founder Larry Page and high-ranking employee Marissa Mayer had dated for months.Fact|date=May 2008 It shortly followed that with the revelation that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had an apparently open marriage and had joined a church (as documented on a Web page in Google's cache) with a girlfriend.Fact|date=May 2008 The point of these articles was that the reporters and editors who covered Silicon Valley were well aware of these relationships and their potential impact on Google's stock price and brand reputation. But they had tacitly agreed not to report them in order to curry favor with Google staff.Fact|date=May 2008 Another popular early series of items pitted "famous for the Internet" tech celebrities against each other in beauty contests.Fact|date=May 2008

In November 2006, Douglas was fired. [ [http://valleywag.com/tech/housekeeping/valleywag-release-candidate-2-214343.php Nick Denton announces departure of Nick Douglas] ] An internal memo about the departure surfaced, suggesting Douglas had become too focused on a small group of Internet entrepreneurs who had befriended him to get press coverage.Fact|date=May 2008 The memo also quoted an interview he gave the R.U. Sirius Show (republished on a sister web site 10 Zen Monkeys) in which Douglas had joked that one of his goals for Valleywag was to get sued. [ [http://www.rusiriusradio.com/2006/10/31/show-74-nick-douglas-valleywag/ Show #74 (Interview): Nick Douglas, Valleywag] , the RU Sirius Show]

Gawker founder Nick Denton took over the editing duties until a replacement editor could be found. [ [http://valleywag.com/tech/housekeeping/valleywag-release-candidate-2-214343.php Nick Denton declares himself interim editor] ] Douglas remained on as a part-time contributor.Fact|date=May 2008 Under his reign, Denton broke such stories as Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff's attempt to detain a Wall Street Journal reporter, claiming that reporters were sitting on this story.Fact|date=May 2008 Denton also recruited national magazine writer Paul Boutin to post a daily "Silicon Valley Users Guide" feature on local customs, politics and places, though Boutin subsequently dropped the column when he briefly rejoined Wired.Fact|date=May 2008

In July 2007 Owen Thomas, formerly Business 2.0's online editor, with a career that stretched from Suck.com and Wired to Time and the Red Herring, assumed the role of managing editor.Fact|date=May 2008 He added several staff members and contributors, "very special correspondent" Paul Boutin, associate editors Nicholas Carlson and Jackson West.Fact|date=May 2008 In September 2007, Boutin published a list of 40 companies to be showcased by rival publication TechCrunch at a conference, again suggesting that reporters and bloggers were keeping the list -- on display at the conference site -- from their readers to gain favor with TechCrunch and the companies.Fact|date=May 2008

Valleywag posts a link to its automated traffic stats on its front page.Fact|date=May 2008 As of March 2008, stats showed an average of 131,000 visits and 189,000 pageviews per day, with 2 million visits and 3 million pageviews in December. Fact|date=May 2008 It is one of the top 100 technology news sites, according to Techmeme.Fact|date=May 2008 Mainstream technology reporters John Markoff, Walt Mossberg and David Pogue have acknowledged that they read the site regularly, and have had their emails to Valleywag published on the site.Fact|date=May 2008

In fall 2008, associate editors Nicholas Carlson and Jackson West and reporter Melissa Gira Grant were laid off, leaving Owen Thomas and Paul Boutin to run the site. This was part of a overall restructuring by Gawker Media, described in a memo by Nick Denton as shifting resources to the most commercially successful Gawker sites, away from the focus on increasing traffic, in view of the 2008 credit crisis. [Owen Thomas: [http://valleywag.com/5058760/valleywag-cuts-60-percent-of-staff Valleywag cuts 60 percent of staff] Valleywag, 3 October 2008]

Criticism and controversy

The website has made several high-profile mistakes. Editor Nick Denton twice misreported the identity of the author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog, before Daniel Lyons was outed as the true author. Stating he "ought to have known better", Owen Thomas falsely reported that a drunk employee caused a major power outage at data center 365 Main by relying on the gossip of an unidentified source. [ [http://valleywag.com/tech/breakdowns/drunk-editor-kills-the-gossip-item-you-care-about-282558.php Drunk Editor Kills the Gossip Item You Care About] , Owen Thomas, Valleywag, July 2007.] Industry analyst and speaker Dave Taylor, who runs several technical and business websites, pointed out, "In journalism school, you would never even think about sharing any gossip of this nature without at least two reliable sources, but that never stopped Owen, nor did it stop other bloggers from picking up the incendiary story and shining a very negative light on the Web server hosting company in question." [ [http://www.intuitive.com/blog/valleywag_demonstrates_blogosphere_poor_news_source.html Valleywag demonstrates why the blogosphere is a poor source for news] , Dave Taylor, Intuitive.com, July 29, 2007.]

Under Thomas, the site has become known for unsubstantiated gossip and "linkbait", or stories whose substance lies solely in the title, making it a tempting link for other on-line sites but that effectively only "baits" traffic to Valleywag.Fact|date=July 2008 A small-but-influential tech website hosted by Y Combinator, "Hacker News", recently banned stories from Valleywag. Y Combinator founder Paul Graham wrote “Several users have suggested we ban Valleywag, not for anything in particular that they write about, but because their articles are always such deliberate linkbait. I personally agree. In 99% of Valleywag articles, the most interesting thing is the title.” [ [http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/11/hacker-news-considers-banning-valleywag/ Hacker News Bans Valleywag] , Michael Arrington, Tech News, April 11, 2008.] Sixty percent of "Hacker News" readers voted yes to the ban.

Several Silicon Valley writers have questioned the tactics of Valleywag and similar sites, especially in the wake of the suicide death of executive Paul Tilley, who came under fierce attacks from anonymous bloggers. Writing in "TechCrunch", Michael Arrington, himself a focus of Valleywag's posts, wondered when Valleywag will be the cause of a suicide:

[For] people in Silicon Valley, who are not celebrities and who have no desire other than to build a great startup, a post on Valleywag comes as a huge shock. Seeing your marriage woes, DUI or employment termination up on a popular public website (permanently indexed by search engines) is simply more than they can handle. They have not had the ramp up time to build resistance to the attacks. [http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/02/when-will-we-have-our-first-valleywag-suicide/ When Will We Have Our First Valleywag Suicide?] , Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, March 2, 2008.]

Internet marketing expert Andy Beal responded to Arrington's column on his website MarketingPilgrim.com:

Perhaps all bloggers–in fact, all journalists– should stop and consider the personal psychological harm our words might have on an individual. While it’s easy for us to post our scathing criticisms. we’re often desensitized to the harm we inflict–simply because we’re miles away, safe behind our web browser. [ [http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/03/blog-attacks-leading-to-suicides.html Blog Attacks Leading to Suicide] , Andy Beal, MarketingPilgrim.com, March 3, 2008]

Responding in the "The Daily Telegraph" technology blog, Shane Richmond felt Arrington had a conflict-of-interest in writing the column: "As for Mr Arrington's suggestion, which basically amounts to 'I wish everyone would be nicer', I imagine it's largely motivated by the fact that, as he acknowledges in his post, he's a frequent target of Valleywag himself." [ [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/shanerichmond/mar08/blog-wars-over-simplifying-suicide.htm Blog Wars Over-Simplifying Suicide] , Shane Richmond, The Telegraph, March 3, 2008.]

Breaking stories

In November 2007, it told the story of a bank intern whose excuse for missing work was discovered by his Facebook-savvy boss, a story that has been viewed over 680,000 times. [ [http://valleywag.com/tech/your-privacy-is-an-illusion/bank-intern-busted-by-facebook-321802.php Bank intern busted by Facebook] , valleywag.com] In February 2007, Valleywag reported that a Gene Simmons sex tape had been leaked on the Web [http://valleywag.com/358401/gene-simmons-sex-tape-leaked-on-web-nsfw Gene Simmons sex tape leaked on Web (NSFW)] , valleywag.com] -- and then published a cease-and-desist letter from Simmons's lawyer as proof of its authenticity. [ [http://valleywag.com/359336/gene-simmons-lawyer-confirms-sex-tapes-authenticity Gene Simmons lawyer confirms sex tape's authenticity] , valleywag.com] In spring 2008, Valleywag ran a series of articles on Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, alleging that he traded favorable edits for sexual favors and donations to the Wikimedia Foundation [ [http://valleywag.com/370767/jimmy-wales-secretly-wants-you-to-mock-him The sum of all human knowledge] , valleywag.com, March 21, 2008] .

References

External links

* [http://www.valleywag.com Valleywag - Homepage]
* [http://valleywag.com/tech/web2ooh/web-2ooh-scandal-robots-and-your-new-king-and-queen-197208.php Valleywag - Web 2.Ooh contest]
* [http://valleywag.com/tech/silicon-valley-users-guide/ Valleywag - Silicon Valley Users Guide]
* [http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/06_16/b3980104.htm?chan=gl Profile of Valleywag and Nick Douglas in BusinessWeek Magazine]