Valleywag

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Valleywag is a Gawker Media blog with gossip and news about Silicon Valley personalities.

Its recurring feature of note is "online beauty contests" for tech workers, including PR professionals, tech executives, and Google employees. It has also begun hosting informal get-togethers in San Francisco.

Valleywag launched in February 2006 with editor Nick Douglas. Gawker Media's Nick Denton chose Douglas because of his love of gossip, and his status as an unknown outsider. Douglas's previous experience consisted of a blog-focused gossip blog he edited as a college student called Blogebrity.

In November 2006, Douglas was fired as editor from Valleywag, surprising its readers. An internal memo about the departure soon surfaced, mentioning issues with the loss of his outsider status, such as trading favors. In addition, the memo quoted an interview he gave the R.U. Sirius Show (which was republished on a sister web site, 10 Zen Monkeys); reading this, 10 Zen Monkeys apologized for playing any part in his departure.

Gawker founder Nick Denton took over the editing duties until a replacement editor could be found. Also, Nick Douglas has rejoined Valleywag as a correspondent.