Today I received a surprising message from Kickstarter. According to their newest press release, they will be changing their name from Kickstarter to Kickstartr.
Why would such a popular website change its name now?
Well, there is a long list of companies that have done this in the past.
For example:
- The Walt Disney Company use to be called Laugh-O-Gram Studio
- Xerox was originally Copy Cat Company
- Nissan started car production as Datsu
- Apple inc before incorporation was Job Industries.
For the reason behind the change, you must read the press release below:
Hi everyone!
Later this month we will celebrate our fifth birthday. Five years! That’s one heck of a milestone, and it’s got us reflecting.
Two years ago, in our third birthday blog post, we wrote the following: “We added the ‘e’ to Kickstarter in the fall of 2008. The new name took some getting used to.”
The truth is, we never really got used to it. Kickstarter with an “e” has looked weird to us since that day in 2008, but we felt fortunate to find a community that embraced us nonetheless. Now it’s time to stop pretending. We are proud to announce that effective immediately, we’re going back to our roots. Kickstarter is now Kickstartr.
This was not a decision we made lightly; there were a number of considerations. Let’s talk about design. We think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity, clarity, and efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. Sculptors do not add clay to their statues. Instead, they chisel away at the nonessential until their refined vision is revealed. To that end, we’ve chosen not to add but to minimize, and boldly remove the nonessential “e” from our name.
Beyond that, we’ve always been environmentally self-conscious about our decision to add the “e”. By changing back to Kickstartr sitewide, we reduce load time and bandwidth use across the board. Based on our current user base and daily page loads, dropping the “e” will actually save us (and you) a collective 14 TB of data usage annually. We’ve reduced our site’s carbon footprint by over 9%, and we didn’t even have to switch our font to Garamond.
What does this mean for you, our community? We’ll still be the Kickstartr you know and love – just a little bit quicker to type! Our new logo is live and the transition to kickstartr.comwill be complete by April 28th. In the meantime, we’ve got our work cut out for us. To get everyone on the same page, we’ll shortly be recalling and disposing of existing “Kickstarter” swag, and building out our training documentation on how to pronounce the new name.
We understand that we may be opening ourselves up to criticism; we remember the internet firestorm that resulted when TheFacebook transitioned to Facebook. But there is no “e” in community. In our hearts, we know that streamlining is the right thing to do. We are excited to continue to serve you, our community, for many years to come as Kickstartr.
<3
Kickstartr
We want to thank Kickstartr for showing us they can be one of the many successful companies able to change their name.
With out the “e” I personally think it will boost their connection with the younger generations, especially those that try to use as few letters as possible when typing. We had “to” change to “2”, “thanks” to “thnx”, and now “Kickstarter” to “Kicksartr”
Way to lead the way Kickstartr and thnx for all you’ve done.
Happy April 1st 🙂
