BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS

Time.com Techland Promises Nerd-vana
Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Another tech blog? Really? Because after Engadget, CrunchGear, Gizmodo, Wired, GeekBrief.tv, Technologizer, PCMag, Tekzilla, and all of CNet (plus almost 100 others, listed here) do we need another?

Time.com thinks so, and it promises that the newly launched Techland is different.

First, the blog comes with branded media chops, which may or may not be a good thing in the online geek world. Nevertheless, Time.com tech editor Peter Ha leads the group along with bestselling novelist and Time book critic Lev Grossman, Simpson’s executive producer Matt Selman and others from the Time Inc. stable.

Techland seems to be leaning a lot on the exclusivity its access allows. There is an emphasis on sneak peeks of things like the next Tony Hawk video game, an interview with the director of last weeken’d blockbuster hit 2012, a reveal of an upcoming comics series, etc.

And we must say, the site breaks from the poorly formatted endless scroll of the common tech blog. Above the fold a feature story dominates the top half of the screen with well-illustrated headers to secondary stories beneath. It is flanked by a set of “Must-Reads” that help surface the most noteworthy recent posts. We also like the “Calendar” feature, which takes note of the new TV episodes and pop culture releases most geeks will want to catch. In all, this blog does help overcome one of the common maladies of the gadget blog -- too much trivial content clutter getting in the way of meaningful posts.

Fittingly, the site has a launch sponsor in Google Chrome, a Web browser that has become a fast favorite among tech heads.

Ha and Grossman introduce the new blog in one of the most laid back promotional videos we have ever seen. As they discuss below, Techland began life as Grossman’s Nerdland blog at the Time.com site. They promise more posts, more exclusives and, we hope, a little more energy than this inaugural clip.



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