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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
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by relying on the gossip of an unidentified source. 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
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took over the editing duties until a replacement editor could be found. Douglas remained on as a part-time contributor. 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.
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and had joined a church (as documented on a Web page in Google's cache) with a girlfriend. 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. They had
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were laid off, leaving Owen Thomas and Paul Boutin to run the site. This was part of an 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
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In
November 2006, Douglas was fired. 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. The memo also quoted an interview he gave the R.U. Sirius Show (republished on a
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Valleywag posted a link to its automated traffic statistics on its front page. In March 2008, these stats showed an average of 131,000 visits and 189,000 pageviews per day, with 2 million visits and 3 million pageviews in
December. It was one of the top 100 technology news sites, according to
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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. He added several staff members and contributors, "very special correspondent" Paul Boutin, associate editors
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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." Sixty percent of
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The blog ceased operating in
February 2011, and the URL began directing to a Gawker page with a selection of technology industry-themed stories. In April 2013, Valleywag was resurrected under the editorship of
398:", or stories whose substance lay solely in the title, making it a tempting link for other on-line sites but that effectively only "baited" traffic to Valleywag. A small-but-influential tech website hosted by
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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.
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tacitly agreed not to report them in order to curry favor with Google staff. Another popular early series of items pitted "famous for the
Internet" tech celebrities against each other in beauty contests.
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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.
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sex tape. It was 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.
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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,
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The website made several high-profile mistakes in reporting stories. Editor Nick Denton twice misreported the identity of the author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog, before
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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.
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writers 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
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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
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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."
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personalities. It was initially launched under the direction of editor Nick Douglas in February 2006. After Douglas was fired, the blog was taken over by
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Valleywag launched in February 2006 with editor Nick Douglas. As a college student, Douglas had edited a gossip blog called Blogebrity.
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informed Owen Thomas that Valleywag would be folded, laying off Paul Boutin, with Thomas taking over a column on its parent site
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Critics of Nick Denton argue that Valleywag was created in order to give himself leverage over Silicon Valley companies.
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and Jackson West. In September 2007, Boutin published a list of 40 companies to be showcased by rival publication
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sister web site 10 Zen Monkeys) in which Douglas had joked that one of his goals for Valleywag was to get sued.
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698:"Pando: Fmr Gawker exec: Valleywag was created to "give Nick Denton leverage over Silicon Valley companies""
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acknowledged that they read the site regularly, and had their emails to Valleywag published on the site.
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had dated for months. It shortly followed that with the revelation that Google CEO
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In fall 2008, associate editors Nicholas Carlson and Jackson West and reporter
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In April 2013, Valleywag was resurrected under the editorship of Sam Biddle.
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Valleywag was the first to break some stories, such as the leaking of a
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Valleywag demonstrates why the blogosphere is a poor source for news
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Under Thomas, the site became known for unsubstantiated gossip and "
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Valleywag's Owen Thomas blogging live from an event.
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715:Drunk Editor Kills the Gossip Item You Care About
270:In its first post, Valleywag outed the fact that
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625:Nick Denton announces departure of Nick Douglas
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303:Denton also recruited national magazine writer
514:When Will We Have Our First Valleywag Suicide?
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564:"Sorry to Disrupt: Valleywag Is Back"
104:February 2006 (relaunched April 2013)
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193:adding citations to reliable sources
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656:"Valleywag - Sorry to disrupt"
606:John Cook (31 December 2015).
581:McAlone, Nathan (2015-11-17).
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417:readers voted yes to the ban.
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608:"R.I.P. Valleywag, 2006-2015"
562:Sam Biddle (22 April 2013).
79:http://valleywag.gawker.com/
128:with gossip and news about
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278:and high-ranking employee
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375:Criticism and controversy
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157:become a politics site.
630:March 14, 2008, at the
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894:Deadspin
862:The Root
628:Archived
539:Archived
420:Several
396:linkbait
388:365 Main
333:Techmeme
274:founder
245:May 2008
112:Inactive
101:Launched
96:Optional
917:Jezebel
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438:suicide
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