Owen Thomas (left), who most recently was at Business 2.0 but started his career at Suck.com, has taken over as the new editor of Valleywag.com, the Silicon Valley tech gossip site. He replaces owner Nick Denton, who has several such sites in different communities but has personally been editing Valleywag since Nov. 13, after giving the boot to the site’s original editor, Nick Douglas.

Thomas, in a post announcing his appointment, says he got the job by bothering Denton [right] non-stop for two years. “The torment, of course, mostly consisted of repeatedly turning down the job of running Valleywag — and then turning around and IMing Denton daily — no, hourly — no, minutely — to tell him how, precisely, I thought he ought to do it.”

Thomas’s first day on the job was rough, if this report by CNBC’s Jim Goldman is any indication. Thomas claimed that Google executive Susan Wojcicki lied when she said she invented AdSense, Google’s advertising system. Google spokesman David Krane called Thomas’s report “patently false,” though he admits the name AdSense came from a company Google acquired. Thomas is standing by his story.