As editor of the late Time Inc. title Business 2.0, Quittner once employed Valleywag emeritus Owen Thomas (as well as your current Valleywag). But somewhere along the way, Quittner soured on Thomas.

Thomas jumped to Valleywag and Business 2.0 folded. When Quittner landed at Fortune, Thomas wrote about Quittner's inflated title, covered Fortune's suspension of his blogging privileges, and quoted the Scrabulous-playing columnist saying he had "too much time on my hands."

Quittner seemed to take it personally. After jumping to Time, he used the magazine as his personal burn book, noting in January that a Sony virtual world wouldn't create an avatar "as fat as your average tech-gossip blogger."

Now Quittner's at it again, with a Sims 3 review in which he creates a "Loser" character named "Thomas Woodchuck" and burns him alive (see clip above). As several tipsters have noted, the resemblance between Woodchuck and Thomas can't be missed — nor can the creepiness of teaching his daughter to drown an enemy in the pool.

It seems early to get too alarmed; there are worse things than being called an "unredoubtable... woodchuck" in an anonymous comments, or killed virtually in a videogame. We're just a little surprised Time indulges Quittner's grudge — or that the reporter, after all this time, still holds it.

A necessary disclosure here: I worked on this list for several years when it was put out by Fortune's now-defunct sister publication, Business 2.0. It was a pain in the tuchis! It was a lot of work! I had half-a-dozen factcheckers going full speed for weeks on that mother! Oh, and also, it was funnier when I wrote it.

So I can't blame Fortune for cutting back. Tough times, which make for great stories of business disaster, are exactly when advertising-dependent publications are least able to afford covering them. In fact, Fortune laid off some of the people who contributed to this year's list. Next year, I'm betting this one goes to eleven.

When Business 2.0, published by Time Inc., another arm of Time Warner, was on the rocks, its editor talked up a deal to save the magazine by merging it with TechCrunch. Those talks went nowhere. All of which makes us feel bad for TechCrunch coeditor Erick Schonfeld, who previously worked at Business 2.0; wasn't the whole idea of joining TechCrunch to escape Time Warner?

When I worked for Quittner at Business 2.0, he talked constantly about his long-held dream of going to a startup or launching a blog. That he's now choosing to stay at magazine publisher Time Inc. is useful as an economic indicator. Quittner boosted the Valley's comeback, and the business of blogging, long before other mainstream journalists. That he's turned bearish on both now could be a sign of personal cowardice. Or keen prescience.

April 16, 2008

To: TIME Staff
From: Rick Stengel

I'm delighted to announce that Josh Quittner is coming back to TIME to cover consumer technology with a regular column in the magazine and a daily blog on TIME.com. In his new role as editor-at-large, Josh will apply his singular voice to technology, writing both reviews of new products and features that explain what's most important to consumers in Techland.

Most recently, Josh was the managing editor of Business 2.0 and a writer for FORTUNE. He first had a byline in TIME in 1994 as a staff writer covering technology, back at the very beginning of the internet. He went on to launch "The Netly News," first as a website on Pathfinder and later as a column in the magazine. He subsequently served as editor of TIME.com—twice—as well as tech editor of TIME before moving to San Francisco in 2002 to work for Business 2.0. Prior to coming to Time Inc., Josh worked at Newsday in the early 90s, where he wrote a pioneering column called "Life in Cyberspace."

Josh will continue to work from San Francisco where he lives with his wife, journalist Michelle Slatalla (with whom he has co-written five books) and their three daughters, but I expect he'll be in the New York offices regularly. Josh is a great mind and a great brand to have back at TIME. We're fortunate to have him.

R.S.

The domain name now points to a blog that's been active since March 10. The writers are "Slatalla" — almost certainly Michelle Slatalla, Quittner's wife — and "Roofie" — presumably Quittner. The prose matches his voice, and the subject fits, since Quittner took an active interest in real estate while at Business 2.0. But real estate is a bread-and-butter subject for Time Inc.'s finance magazines. Josh, rather than starting your own blog, why don't you just apply for a job at Money, run by your former deputy Eric Schurenberg? That seems easier.

Valleywag's Mary Jane Irwin — who worked for me at Business 2.0 — snapped this shot of a waiting passenger devouring Business 2.0's final issue in the Portland, Maine, airport. Another reminder that Time Inc.'s incompetent reorganization of its salesforce, not a lack of demand from readers, killed the title.

At best, it's careless; at worst, a deliberate slap. Add it to the list of ways Quittner, a difficult, mischievous, but endlessly creative personality who arguably saved the magazine (and, with it, my career) from a much-earlier death, has been treated disgracefully by his employer. The only mystery: Why is he sticking around, save for the New-York-media-level salary?

Arrington is being far too generous in that murder scenario, I believe. He gives the executives at Time Inc. more credit for strategic thinking than they deserve. With the damage done, however, they faced a pragmatic choice of spending money to revive Business 2.0's ad sales, or reinvesting in Fortune, which now faces serious competition from Conde Nast's Portfolio. Can you blame them for making what was, to them, the safer bet?

New York-based media has never understood the Valley well, parachuting reporters in during the boom times, and abandoning it during the inevitable bust. (How long do you think Fortune's newly expanded San Francisco bureau, swollen with Business 2.0 refugees, will last during the next downturn?) That Time Inc. didn't know what to make of Business 2.0 isn't surprising. It's typical.

Former B2 editor Josh Quittner, left, will get the title of executive editor, and Squires gives props to his tech chops in the memo. But Squires doesn't mention that as such, Quittner will be effectively outranked by his predecessor, Jim Aley, right, who departed B2 abruptly in 2002 to rejoin Fortune after Quittner arrived to take over the magazine. From what we hear, Aley, an assistant managing editor and the director of Fortune's technology coverage, will be the de facto boss of the tech-focused bureau, not Quittner. (Full disclosure: Before joining Valleywag, I worked for both Aley and Quittner at Business 2.0.)

The bidders, sources say, include CNET, the online tech publisher, and Mansueto Ventures, the publisher of Inc. and Fast Company. CNET's interest likely extends to the brand and the articles archive, while Mansueto might be more interested in Business 2.0's 600,000-strong mailing list of subscribers, which could bolster Fast Company's print circulation. But a sale of those assets while it might generate some cash for Time Inc., would also strengthen the buyers as print and online rivals to the magazine publishers, making those companies' bids unlikely to result in a deal.