Photo by Scott Beale

Nick Douglas of Valleywag has left the building. The talented and sometimes controversial writer is no longer the lead editor at Valleywag, and, they are looking to fill his shoes.

Valleywag says

Nick Douglas, editor since launch earlier this year, is leaving. […] Nick Douglas, the kid we plucked from college to launch Valleywag, will be a great journalist. And we will look stupid for letting him go. (To reach Nick Douglas, send email to popsnap at gmail dot com.) But, to helm the site, we’re now looking for someone with, ideally, some background in reporting.

For a blog that tries to reveal everything about industry gossip and secrets, they’re certainly keeping Nick Douglas’s departure rather low key. He really was the voice of Valleywag, and, even though I don’t usually read it everyday, I enjoyed his witty banter on the state of Web 2.0 gossip. It won’t be the same without him.

Now, he can start his own blog, and, I’m sure that the first entry will be about the circumstances of departure from VW.

Also, VW has also redesigned their page, and oh, what a horrible redesign it is. They say that the original design of VW was weak, but, I think that it’s not only weaker now, it’s bad on the eyes. The original design was one of my favorites in the gawker regime.

Will this be the start of the decline of VW? Nick really had the personality within the Web 2.0 world, and, his departure will leave the new guy with a lot of catching up to do.