The Big News (TNL is black. And this time... it's personal)
Nick's having some problem with internet access so I'm going to break our big announcement. I know Nick should be doing this, but just pretend.
TNL is 10 years old today and anyone who made it out to New York this weekend knows we've been doing plenty of celebrating. But we're looking to do a lot more than just look back on the good times to mark this occasion. Those of you that made it out to the Beer Garden last night got to hear the big news straight from TNL's founding father, bahn. In brief: TNL will be re-launching soon, with the support of bahn, myself, and a lot of talented writers.
For years now, TNL has been unable to restart its content end. Meanwhile, GotNext has maintained a steady flow of content, but has been unable to build a strong community anywhere near as fun as TNL. Nick and bahn have had their differences, but it was through that time apart that they came to appreciate just how good the other is at what they do. Now they're getting the band back together, and this time we're doing things right.
We're completely rebuilding the content end of the site for the occasion. TNL 4.0 has a completely new design that is stylish, attractive, and very different from every other gaming site out there, thanks to Bacon McShig and køda. I think the new look will quickly become signature, and I'm really proud of what we've come up with. We're also going to be launching a regular schedule of video content as well as a streaming radio channel that will feature some great game music as well as regularly scheduled talk shows and other content.
GotNext is going away. We're retiring the brand and putting our full support behind TNL. We're stronger as a whole and we know that now. We are jettisoning our forums, and they will be hosting themselves as an independent site from now on. Bahn and myself will be in charge of the editorial side of the site, while Nick will continue his role in promoting the TNL brand, managing the site's operations, and leading the community. All of GotNext's staff will be throwing our efforts behind this new venture, including talented TNLers like NeoZeedeater, Rocca, and AaronChance.
We will likely want to bring back some of the old school staff and take on some new guys as well. Some of this will simply be in the form of irregular features or new blogs, while others may want to deal with the responsibility of joining the review crew. We have always been very selective in building our staff and will continue to be even more so through this transition. We're looking for people with an active interest in writing only. If you want to write for us, please send bahn and myself some samples of your work and let us know how you'd like to be involved.
I know everyone is going to be clamoring for a date, but we've been through this before and we know better than to make promises. That said, it will be sooner than you probably think. The remaining work is just technical, building the site to our design spec and making it actually work. We have been quietly working on this since the winter, and the finish line is in sight. We're sending a team of 5 or 6 to E3 this year and we're making that our target right now.
We're all really excited about this project. We're going to be building a better, more interactive site that will not only live up to TNL's legacy, but take it to, well… the next level.
