
Gawker Media shuts Valleywag, offers Consumerist for sale - erickhill
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/11/12/briefly-gawker-media-shuts-valleywag-offers-consumerist-sale
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ardit33
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.

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ojbyrne
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.

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unalone
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.

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greyman
>> 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...

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

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

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

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tlrobinson
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)

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

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

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

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ojbyrne
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.

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gojomo
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.

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biohacker42
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.

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alaskamiller
Meh.

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aston
Are you being transferred?

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alaskamiller
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.

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unalone
Wait, meaning other sites are _trying,_ or other sites are writing you asking
for you on their staff?

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alaskamiller
Both.

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

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petercooper
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 ;-)

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beamso
Crap! I liked Valleywag. :(

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

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

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

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

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mattmaroon
I guess the sarcasm wasn't evident.

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

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hooande
ding dong the witch is dead!

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sahaj
the startup party is over. i really doubt HN will take off. but then again,
most people here don't want that anyway.

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skmurphy
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.

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sahaj
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?

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

