Nooo..... I actually like valleywag :( Sure it was nasty, and it was gossipy, and not journalism at all, but it was a lot more frank and honest than a bunch of other tech. blogs out there.

I loved valleywag and will miss it. My few appearances there have nothing to do with it. I just love the tabloid mentality, and my experiences living in Norcal screamed at me that it was ripe for that kind of approach. Oh well.

They stepped over a few lines, but writers actually got scoops from time to time. It was generally a fun read.

The Wag will be missed.

Valleywag I was never fond of: it, along with Gawker, always seemed too deliberately nasty, without ever really being interesting.

It's a shame about the Consumerist, though. It had some excellent articles. Still does, on occasion.

>> too deliberately nasty

Well said. I have nothing against tabloids per se, but I always felt that they just didn't know how to do it properly, or that the tabloid practice applied to tech scene didn't work that well. I don't miss them...

But. But. But. Where am I going to hear about what Justin's up to?

We've got that beat covered:

http://www.justin.tv/officecam

Come back once in a while? You know when the poker games are...

Not surprised given the quality of content on Valleywag, after all it was banned from HN.

Valleywag occasionally had some interesting stuff... key word: "occasionally".

Most of the time they were just picking really petty things to complain about, trying to turn it into a controversy.

Maybe now that it's just a column on Gawker the signal-noise ratio will increase (hopefully they'll offer a Valleywag-only RSS feed... I don't care much for the rest of Gawker)

I think startups are the wrong place for a gossip rag to be hanging out. Keep that garbage in Hollywood please.

You've obviously not spent much time hanging around with the "Web 2.0" crowd in SF. Ripe for ridicule.

Except, rather than deflating the vanity and pretentiousness, Valleywag on net inflated it, directing even more incestuous attention to superficialities and private lives.

I wish Denton luck in his other titles. I hope Boutin, the one byline most consistently puckish rather than nasty, continues to find other outlets. But overall I'm glad Valleywag is folding; it leaked an unhealthy amount of sewage into the intertubes.

I've seen my share of gossip-worthy stories, but I'd rather hear about them in the dead pool.

Except "buzz" is part of what produces growth. And it's almost guaranteed that "buzz" is generally empty, shallow people interacting with other empty, shallow people (because that's 90% of the world's population). That produces gossip, and buzz, and more buzz, and tabloid journalism, and billions of dollars. "Hollywood" is the perfect paradigm for that.

The kind of "buzz" that creates growth for tech companies is "gee whiz, check out this young/new/innovative/life-changing/giant-killing company/technology." Not cynical mockery.

And the culture of vapid celebrity that sells magazines/TV/movies doesn't sell tech. Even the Facebook/MySpace masses could hardly care less about gossip of those companies' founders and executives. At best, such gossip is industry 'inside baseball'... and so it should be judged for accuracy and relevance, not snark and salaciousness.

What happened here is that a few blogs like The Consumerist were profitable enough to support a few people, Gawker bought them to try to make something much bigger out of them.

Now that the economy is turning sour they will try to sell them.

But if you're efficient enough you might still be able to eek out a living from a blog like the consumerist. It's not a business with a capitol B, but it's a living.

Meh.

Are you being transferred?

Maybe Giz, but it eats up a lot of time though. I should just finish out my web apps. Already hearing some sites that need writers to establish themselves as the next VW.

Wait, meaning other sites are trying, or other sites are writing you asking for you on their staff?

Both.

Seems like an opportunity for some budding writer to take its place.

A writer with a backer / publisher, maybe. It'd be hard for an independent writer to do it for fear of crossing the lines and getting sued ;-)

Crap! I liked Valleywag. :(

Valleywag was good entertainment. Tabloids for geeks. Gonna miss it.

Damn, now how am I going to find out what Kevin Rose is up to?

I believe he'll keep you covered. Afterall, he does have @kevinscold (found via valleywag).

Not to mention a blog, and formerly a tumblelog as well. The guy's connected.

I guess the sarcasm wasn't evident.

the first post on the new consumerist will write itself if they ripoff someone on the sale

I don't think the startup party is over: I think the tourists have gone home. HN has taken off as an extremely useful community for serious entrepreneurs. And based on the vast majority of submissions and comments that I read, "most people here" want serious conversation.

Hacker News: Serious business.

All I need is a picture of a cat.

i don't think the tourists have gone home: i think they ran out of money.

you say tomato, i say potato.

did i say the community was not useful or that it didn't want serious conversation?

When tourists run of out money they go home. That's why they are called tourists and not homeless.

Hacker News take off? God, I hope it doesn't. I like this community as it is: small, informed, grammatically capable, and rather elitist.