The Post About the Relaunch

But… but… it’s Nerd World! Not as clumsy or random as Techland; an elegant blog name for a more civilized age.

Lev, would you say that this was the Plan of the mysterious powers-that-be, to usurp you by putting almost robotic underlings like Peter Ha under your command, only to have them strategically in place for the ultimate downfall of Nerd World? Now there’s nothing to stop Techland from taking over! Help me, Leverus, you’re our only hope!

Almost? I’ll have you know that Peter is ENTIRELY robotic. we spared no expense.

seriously techland is basically the same deal. just bigger/fancier. we all wanted it out from under the time.com domain. and as it happened the guy who owns nerdworld.com has a very high estimate of its value.

Does not compute. Does not compute. *POOF*

As long as we get the same amount (or more) of delicious Lev writings, I don’t care that much. It would be nice not to have to wade through fifty posts about gadgets or mobiles to get to the juicy goodness, but life is hard sometimes. Sigh.

Too bad. I liked being under the Time umbrella. It provided gravitas. There are a million tech blogs, but only one Nerd World and the heft of Time contributed to that uniqueness. I do approve of giving the owner of nerdworld.com the shaft, however.

Oh please. This is just a dodge so that Lev doesn’t have to hear “how can you have a blog called nerdworld and not have seen BSG?”

ARGH! I don’t really give a crap about the technology posts. I like all the other, nerdy stuff. Grr…

This.

“how can you have a blog called techworld without a basic understanding of cylon technology?”

Have to agree. I already get tech from Slashdot, Daring Fireball, Ars Technica… /Forest Gump

You’re going to make us get new logins and passwords AGAIN, aren’t you?

I think I said some of the same stuff when Peter first posted about the iPhone or whatever it was. I agree with the shooting gallery that I don’t need another tech blog, though I certainly understand wanting to get a piece of the Engadget/Gizmodo money pie.

I hope I keep reading here, I grok Lev and the Nerd World aesthetic. I like the blog the way it is, but life moves on… I’ve been commenting a lot less since Peter came on, but that’s not necessarily a reflection of future behavior.

I guess Lev got tired of doing all the hard work of working for Time/writing novels/twittering/blogging, and Matt has disappeared off the surface of the earth for more subterranean realms of comedy, so new bloggers must fill in…

I blame Twitter. Lev got all techy and now he’s off the deep end…

Hey, on the plus side, maybe the new site won’t be bouncy!

Don’t get too hung up on the name. Matt and I will be writing the same stuff we always did. Except we’ll be able to get a bit looser, since it’s not officially part of Time.com.

But this thing has to pay for itself, and tech=traffic. Any guesses as to the all-time most-read post on Nerd World? It’s Peter’s Droid review from last Thursday. By a big margin.

So in this brave new world your founding, would Time not have its own droid review?

Well, I for one will miss the kick-butt name Nerd World. But I can see the financial incentives. Cheers and best of luck,

Will the same RSS feed work, or will we need a new one?

I guess we made the point that a blog called Nerd World had no BSG coverage one too many times, and this is your attempt to nullify it?

Seriously, I’m all for growth, and I hope it’s succesful, but part of the charm of this blog for me has always been the the offbeat posts and the places the comments take them. Remember the epic zombie literary war debate that raged for two days just because of the headline Lev did about the new Tolkien book?

So do your techie posts and get your hit count, and your commenters getting angry and insulting because someone doesn’t understand 3G, but please don’t forget that we’ll still need our cutting edge observations about other aspects of geek culture like all the critical analysis of Battlestar… Oh, wait. Why do I read this thing again? (Kidding, kidding.)

Techland is so…mainstream. Nerd World is a whole world! For Nerds!

I feel so abandoned.

HOW COULD YOU ABANDON US LIKE THIS

Kidding. I’ll get over it. If I could learn to love “Engadget” I can learn to love Techland.

A sad development indeed.

I hope you can remain ONE OF US and avoid becoming just another hardware reviewer for the mainstream reader.

I cannot stress enough: I will be writing exactly the same crap I was writing before. IT will just be somewhat encrusted with other stuff AROUND it, including tech reviews.

None of us, Peter included, were happy about the name Techland. It gives the wrong impression about the site, like it’s gonna be Gizmodesque or Engadgetoid. But it was either that or come up w/ a nonsense name like Hulu or Wii or something. It was a close call — maybe I should publish some of the near misses — but in the end we couldn’t do that, because we are either too dignified or too stupid.

If anybody wants to pass the hat for enough money to buy us nerdworld.com, I am not too proud to accept your charity. But I’m telling you, you’re gonna need a big hat.

what about thenerdworld.com?

Can “Nerd World” remain part of the title, like in “Techland: a Nerd World” or “Techland: a world for nerds” or even “Nerd World 2: Electric Boogaloo?”

Actually http://www.electricboogaloo.com is taken, so scratch that.

Honestly, Lev, I don’t think anyone really cares what the name is. We enjoy the blog, and if the new incarnation is going to be along the same lines, we’ll still come and enjoy it.

We also just really enjoy giving you crap for just about anything we can. I think the only way you could have avoided us giving you crap over any name aside from Nerd World would have been to name it levsbsgfansite.com (but it’s not too late for that one, is it? Is it?).

I, for one, would be interested in reading the near-misses.

(Also: why didn’t you ask us for suggestions? [sadface])

Seriously, if it’s hits they want why not hotgirlongirlaction.com?

Oh, I see. Nevermind. Techworld it is.

good. get back to work on magicians 2. ive read the book twice and am dying to know what happens next.

I guess it could have been William Shatner’s Tekworld so we should count ourselves lucky.

seriously though when can we expext number 2? and if you dont bring a certain character back from the dead i promise to burn techland to the ground with a very heated letter.

(by the way not an actual threat)

Another thought. So you guy’s are breaking with Time to start up your own blog? This sounds an awful like the last episode of Mad Men. Did the four of you sneak in and steal files and office furniture over the weekend? In that spirt, the new blog should be named Grossman Selman Quittner & Ha.

Lev, I spotted this on another blog: http://io9.com/5400549/grossman-failure-of-imagination–harry-potter.

Did you ever say that here at Nerd World? I can’t remember, but I totally agree.

Oh, and I’ve decided not to get your book until you watch BSG. Have I gone too far?

All right, but if you’re lying to us, you’ll feel our impotent, nerdy wrath.

you can run and hide behind your new blue screen and terrible name, but the war continues. Continues, and continues.

That’s actually why I cruised over to Nerd World, to ask about the quote.
.
But yeah, it seems like The One Who Lived would get up to a few more things besides dropping the kids off at school.

“Related Topics: nerd world is dead long live netechland”

Ah Lev, before you were frustrating me with your BSG refusnik status you were frustrating me with your inability to count backspaces. The circle is complete.

as your faithful follower on twitter i will follow you where you go leverus!
but it’s totally understandable as i keep certain links on my blogroll to maintain my traffic
those people that link me back drives traffic to my site, HIGH traffic at that
so i need that (though i dont actually have advertising)
yeah
its okay that you kind of sold out

I like “thenerdworld.com” or some variation. Techland really doesn’t do justice to the current NW content… But I’m sure the die is cast.

I can’t stress enough that I will immediately become a happy person once the site is no longer bouncy.

:O I remember that. That was fun.

[thumb wars imperial voice] I have a question! What happens to my Yahoo widget? [/thumb wars imperial voice]

WOWZA! I made it into two pages!

And to think, there’ll never be another two page nerdworld post. Sniff …

This move means an end to the bouncy page loading, yes?

I think they’re planning on keeping the bouncy page loading around, to make sure all the regulars feel at home in the new page.

Techland does sound pretty: *yawn*.

A quick google search identified Techland as a polish video game developer. Hopefully you arent planning on expanding Techland into the .pl registry any time soon.

Geekiness is more than tech. I am very bummed at this.

[...] Welcome to TECHLAND. If you’re joining us from our previous perch over at Lev’s Nerd World blog then expect to see a lot of the same thing, but on a much larger scale. I know. It’s different, unfamiliar and somewhat frightening. We’re creatures of comfort and steer clear of change if we can help it but this is something different and special. Contrary to popular belief and what our name evokes, TECHLAND isn’t just about tech. Long story. You can read about it over here. [...]

liking the new layout! pleasantly surprised

soooo, when can I expect to find this free download of Star Trek…..

Lev, I feel betrayed. You wrote, “I cannot stress enough: I will be writing exactly the same crap I was writing before. IT will just be somewhat encrusted with other stuff AROUND it, including tech reviews.”

You should have written, “I cannot stress enough: I will be writing exactly the same crap I was writing before. You just won’t be able to find it because it will be dwarfed by endless crap written by lots of other people who you don’t know. We’re planning on flooding the blog with so much content that it will be virtually impossible for any sense of community to develop.”

For me, Techland rolled a nat 1. Sorry, Lev :(

It’s silly of me to post to a dead thread, but I don’t know where else to go! It’s just that I really, really miss NerdWorld! I eagerly read it every day from the very beginning, though I rarely posted, but I loved the strong personal voice Lev gave it, and especially the familiar community of posters. I really hoped I could find at least some remnants of that on TechLand, but it’s just not there. I understand that expanding to TechLand was the better business decision, and I do enjoy some of the content, but I needed to vent in some kind of public forum about what I feel I’ve lost. Sorry if I sound melodramatic:-/