AOL changing its name to TMZ, part two

I wrote a silly post last week about AOL changing its name to TMZ and then I forgot about it.

Two nights ago I was at Rye Playland with Niki and our sons catching a free show from the Plain White T’s — that Hey There Delilah band — and letting the kids ride some of the safer-looking rides. I saw an email thread on my BlackBerry started by Jason about my TMZ name change idea getting picked up on a financial news site.

By yesterday morning the story had spread to more than a dozen sites.

Yesterday evening it was on Valleywag and Digg’s home page.

First, I have to say that I thought Valleywag snagging Owen Thomas was a great move — even before he wrote this piece and called my idea “brilliant.”

Second, I’m not sure what he means when he says “explain the joke” — what joke? Heh.

Here’s a quick round up of links related to the AOL->TMZ meme:

• AOL To Change Name To TMZ — this is the one that started it all and, to be fair, Bill Hartzer reports it as a “rumor”, he seems to be a search engine expert who understands the value of links and getting noticed on the web whether “someone loves it, hates it, think it’s funny, or the content you create is controversial”, so I’d say he’d trade being called an “idiot” by Valleywag in exchange for massive Digg traffic, links and page views
• AOL + TMZ = TMZ?
• Or not. AOL + TMZ ≠ TMZ?
• AOL to rebrand?
• It’s all come full circle
• Headline of the ~~WEAK~~ — Jason’s most clever title, even with all the tildes
• AOL, alas, not to change name to TMZ
• Google Finance: AOL LLC — “AOL To Change Name To TMZ” appears as the latest AOL news
• AOL Changing Its Name to TMZ?
• AOL to become TMZ
• AOL To Change Name To TMZ?
• WILL AOL NOW BE CALLED TMZ?
• AOL Rumored To Be Changing Name to TMZ
• Wird aus AOL jetzt TMZ? — this meme is even funnier in German
• AOL wird zu TMZ
• AOL Changing Name Again – Now to Be Called TMZ
• AOL changing name to TMZ
  
• AOL to Change Name to TMZ
• AOL to change name to TMZ
• Netscape: AOL to Change Name to TMZ
• AOL to Change Name to TMZ
• AOL Changing Name Again – Now to Be Called TMZ

There are more than two dozen other sites out there covering the same story, but many of them are clipping sites which don’t add anything to the original story that they clipped.

Remember: it’s only a joke if it doesn’t happen.

UPDATE: I’ve collected a bunch of my favorite comments about the big name change.