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Valleywag is a Gawker Media blog with gossip and news about Silicon Valley personalities. It was initially launched under the direction of editor Nick Douglas in February 2006. After Douglas was fired,〔(Why Valleywag Sacked its Editor ), New York Times, November 14, 2006.〕 the blog was taken over by Owen Thomas. Thomas himself left in May 2009, to be replaced by Ryan Tate.〔(Owen Thomas Leaving Gawker ), TechCrunch.com, May 5, 2009.〕 It was the first to break some stories, such as the leaking of a Gene Simmons sex tape.〔(Gene Simmons sex tape leaked on Web (NSFW) ), valleywag.com〕 However, it has been criticized for broadcasting unsubstantiated and damaging gossip about people who are not in the public eye,〔 such as a college intern who falsely called in sick to work and had it publicized across the Internet by Valleywag. The blog ceased operating in February 2011, and the URL began directing to a Gawker page with a selection of technology industry-themed stories. On April 22, 2013, Valleywag was resurrected under the editorship of Sam Biddle.〔http://valleywag.gawker.com/sorry-valleywag-is-back-476815689〕 In November 2015, it was announced that the website would be shut down as part of a focus to have Gawker become a politics site. == Background == Valleywag launched in February 2006 with editor Nick Douglas. As a college student, Douglas had edited a blog-focused gossip blog called Blogebrity. In its first post, Valleywag outed the fact that Google founder Larry Page and high-ranking employee Marissa Mayer had dated for months. It shortly followed that with the revelation that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had an apparently open marriage and had joined a church (as documented on a Web page in Google's cache) with a girlfriend. The point of these articles was that the reporters and editors who covered Silicon Valley were well aware of these relationships and their potential impact on Google's stock price and brand reputation. But they had tacitly agreed not to report them in order to curry favor with Google staff. Another popular early series of items pitted "famous for the Internet" tech celebrities against each other in beauty contests. In November 2006, Douglas was fired.〔(Nick Denton announces departure of Nick Douglas )〕 An internal memo about the departure surfaced, suggesting Douglas had become too focused on a small group of Internet entrepreneurs who had befriended him to get press coverage. The memo also quoted an interview he gave the R.U. Sirius Show (republished on a sister web site 10 Zen Monkeys) in which Douglas had joked that one of his goals for Valleywag was to get sued.〔(Show #74 (Interview): Nick Douglas, Valleywag ), the RU Sirius Show〕 Gawker founder Nick Denton took over the editing duties until a replacement editor could be found.〔(Nick Denton declares himself interim editor )〕 Douglas remained on as a part-time contributor. Under his reign, Denton broke such stories as Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff's attempt to detain a Wall Street Journal reporter, claiming that reporters were sitting on this story. Denton also recruited national magazine writer Paul Boutin to post a daily "Silicon Valley Users Guide" feature on local customs, politics and places, though Boutin subsequently dropped the column when he briefly rejoined Wired. In July 2007, Owen Thomas, formerly Business 2.0's online editor, with a career that stretched from Suck.com and Wired to Time and the Red Herring, assumed the role of managing editor. He added several staff members and contributors, "very special correspondent" Paul Boutin, associate editors Nicholas Carlson and Jackson West. In September 2007, Boutin published a list of 40 companies to be showcased by rival publication TechCrunch at a conference, again suggesting that reporters and bloggers were keeping the list—on display at the conference site—from their readers to gain favor with TechCrunch and the companies. Valleywag posted a link to its automated traffic stats on its front page. In March 2008, stats showed an average of 131,000 visits and 189,000 pageviews per day, with 2 million visits and 3 million pageviews in December. It is one of the top 100 technology news sites, according to Techmeme. Mainstream technology reporters John Markoff, Walt Mossberg and David Pogue acknowledged that they read the site regularly, and had their emails to Valleywag published on the site. In fall 2008, associate editors Nicholas Carlson and Jackson West and reporter Melissa Gira Grant were laid off, leaving Owen Thomas and Paul Boutin to run the site. This was part of an overall restructuring by Gawker Media, described in a memo by Nick Denton as shifting resources to the most commercially successful Gawker sites, away from the focus on increasing traffic, in view of the 2008 credit crisis.〔Owen Thomas: (Valleywag cuts 60 percent of staff ) Valleywag, 3 October 2008〕 On November 12, Nick Denton informed Owen Thomas that Valleywag would be folded, laying off Paul Boutin, with Thomas taking over a column on its parent site Gawker. In April 2013, Valleywag was resurrected under the editorship of Sam Biddle.〔http://valleywag.gawker.com/sorry-valleywag-is-back-476815689〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Valleywag」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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