Kotaku, one of the web’s most popular sources of videogame news, has today announced it will be re-branding as The ‘Tak.
Starting life as The Young Gentleman’s Card Games And Titillation Weekly Chronicle in 1912, the blog formally known as Kotaku is no stranger to change. During World War Two when the paper was run by Charles Foster Kane it moved from broadsheet to the smaller Berliner size to save paper, moving again to the tabloid size in 1954.
After slumping sales during the 1960s the tabloid changed hands several times before settling with Groupe Le Monde who moved The Chronicle to a daily format in a bid to get the news to people before they knew they wanted it.
In 1970 The Chronicle became the first newspaper to move into the online space, providing daily updates via ARPANET. As any text media on the early Internet was required to have a six digit code associated with it, the tabloid changed its online name to Cartit. After an unfortunate input error (the story goes that a young woman clerk was using a DVORAK keyboard layout on a QWERTY machine) several of the main Internets had the incorrect code, “Kotaku”, entered. It was several days before Groupe Le Monde head office were made aware of the error, by which time it was too late to change.
Today, in a press release to the Internet, the site announced its most recent re-branding as The ‘Tak. As Moneygeddon reaches its end, a re-branding is seen internally as a great way to revitalise the online journal. Many online sources of journalism have been suffering in recent months as the shift of advertising money moves away from the online space into the new Social Print Media. Talking to Negative Gamer one employee said the name is seen to embody the classy, future-looking and down-with-the-youth vibe the modern day blog lives off.
Leaked internal memos revealed some of the alternative names being considered by the company included “Boobtaku”, “Caketaku”, “lol first” and “Bukkaku”.
The Coalition Of Parody Kotaku Names had no comment on this article.
Does this mean a rebranding as The ‘Neg might not be far down the line?
@Antwhan: NG Corp have no comment to make on that topic at this time.
Saddest part of the story: visiting Kotaku for confirmation.
I actually wasn’t sure if this was a joke or not.
Don’t worry, they’ll pull the rebranding in a week.
NG is a corporate sellout. This is right-wing media at its worst. Keep all of your money you are stealing from people.
As president and founder of The Coalition Of Parody Kotaku Names, we feel that you should have put more of our parody names in this article.