Nick Douglas, we hardly knew ye (Valleywag RIP)

  CokeWhore 2.0 
  Originally uploaded by dmc500hats.

Looks like Nick Douglas was either booted out of Valleywag, and/or left for a better paying gig with more editorial freedom... new gig rumors noted here in a recent interview.

on the new Valleywag 2.0, owner/temporary substitute blogger Nick Denton sez Valleywag will "tone down the personal coverage of civilians because... their personal lives aren't that interesting".

hmm... wrong & wrong. 

Nick's take on the valley was different from TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOm, or anyone else in the Geek-o-sphere.  in addition to some real hard tech news reporting & dirt-digging, Nick's coverage of Silicon Valley personalities was fun & addictive.  turns out geek voyeurism has at least as much of an audience as the product & money reporting.  who knew.

Valleywag was refreshingly frank, surprisingly insightful, and very, very unrepentant.  i'm sure wherever Nick ends up next will have a similar rebellious feel.  i'm looking forward to signing up as a daily reader for the new gig, whatever it might be...

Comments

[David Stern]

Master of 501 Hats:

I never really got into Valleywag, so I'm looking forward to the new focus on more newsworthy elements of day that will draw a broader audience. We need more journalism covering people, but not for the arguably sensational things they do outside of their work. And I use the term "arguably, loosely, as in OJ "arguably" didn't kill Nicole and Ron. The notion that there is anything remotely interesting about the lives we are living (OK, not the life I'm living actually...I'm chillin' in Walnut Creek, far away from the high impact gossip of the Valley) to anybody outside the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley is absurd. Polly in Peoria is sitting home today, reading In Style, watching Entertainment Tonight, and fantasizing about having a Rickard Shaw purse on one shoulder and Brad Pitt on the other. I can promise you that Polly does not have a secret fantasy to one day be wedged into a booth at Buck's between Mark Benioff and John Doerr, or gives a shit who Larry Page is dating unless her name is Halle. Hell, if my wife doesn't care, Polly sure doesn't.

The point is actually that in order to deliver above market advertising rates, any media property must deliver an audience more valuable than the market alternatives. In my opinion, the Valleywag content was simply not capable of scaling the audience, both in terms of its ability to attract sheer numbers outside the Valley and its ability to serve as a filtering proxy for delivering high intent-focused leads or branding for advertisers ala some of the publications under the Tech Target brand. (See, e.g. those which focus on buying decision of CIO's.)

[Damon Billian]

I leave the Valley and this changes? For shame!

The thing I liked most about Valleywag was that it brought some high-flying folks, notably tech CEOs, down to earth. And while they may not be public people along the lines of a movie star or rock star, they are just as open to criticism for what they do (or don't do) as other public personas.

I kind of looked at Valleywag as a "Daily Show" (not real news) for the internet crowd in SV. Nick's posts, even if he was a little out there at times, will be missed.

[Foofy]

Denton completely misses the point. The personal gossip was the niche, there's already enough sites covering the "real" news. Douglas should be thanked for making the Valley seem sexy and interesting. Without him it's just another herd of geeks!

[David Quiec]

If the big SV blogs are smart, they'll hire the kid fast. I'm sure even Techcrunch can use a talent such as his.

But I'm rooting for a independent blog though. I hope that his contract does not prevent him from doing so.

[vfsv]

Silly us, we think there's a market for actual news. Such as:
"Silicon Valley claims job growth is strong & houses are expensive, therefore rents must go up. However, we are still at 1996 job levels(see:
http://www.viewfromsiliconvalley.com/id274.html)

To keep up with, "What's really happening," please visit,
http://www.viewfromsiliconvalley.com

Thanks!

[Jeffrey McManus]

So, to me, it really depends on what is meant by "civilian". Saying that the CEO of some valley company is sleeping around (or has backdated stock options, etc.) is newsworthy. But saying, as Nick did last week, that managers who are very low on the corporate totem pole should lose their jobs because they're "just along for the ride" (without providing any actual information to explain what that even means) is not just irresponsible and unfair, it's boring.

I like Nick and I like what he does, and I agree he could have bright future as a real reporter somewhere, but he really wasn't set up to succeed here. The notion of taking someone who doesn't know anything about the valley and expecting them to dish up the dirt just wasn't a recipe for success.