Valleywag: Bye Nick, Hi Nick

Posted by: Rob Hof on November 13

Nick Douglas is out at Valleywag, the gossip site that has alternately entertained, infuriated, and bored folks in Silicon Valley with its posts on everything from old romances at Google to, yes, digs at BusinessWeek. Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, of which Valleywag is part (apparently too small a part), is taking over for now, but he’s looking for a replacement:

To helm the site, we’re now looking for someone with, ideally, some background in reporting. An old-media career, useful in the sparkling new world of blogs. Who would have thought?

Whoever takes over will have a slightly new mission:

I suspect we’re going to tone down the personal coverage of civilians, because they haven’t done anything to seek out attention, and their personal lives aren’t that interesting. Unless they are. Anyway, more money, a little less sex: that is Valleywag’s new gossip mantra.

Uh-huh. If anyone is heaving a sigh of relief here, they’re not as smart as they think they are. While I found some of Douglas’ posts entertaining, even useful sometimes, it too often careened into the gutter. Which isn’t as interesting either to folks here or to outsiders, who don’t even know enough about business leaders here to care that much. The challenge for the new Valleywag will be to remain fun as it adds more substantial reporting.

As for Douglas, Matt Marshall at VentureBeat thinks he may land at Wired.