Showing posts with label bad names. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad names. Show all posts
Speechless
OK, that's one naming strategy. Give your website a name that's unpronounceable and doesn't use alphanumeric characters. WTF?
Dot com is today's 800 number
A few years ago, Lexicon Branding, one of the naming firms where I worked, researched perceptions of .com, .net and .biz top-level domain names.
The research found that .coms are, in the abstract, perceived more positively over the lesser-used .biz (et al) domains. This is not surprising: Familiarity breeds trust.
But that's today. The non-.com domains will eventually become more widespread and familiar as companies struggle and fail to find great .com names. The roster of today's bad web names goes on and on; companies compromise their name and ultimately their success just to secure a .com.
That's unwise. The Lexicon research also revealed that people's perceptions of an actual website did not differ no matter what its top-level domain. So in the end, the top-level domain doesn't change perceptions.
Dot com is already losing relevance. The strength of search engines like Google makes finding companies by their name, not their domain name, easy. As a name developer, I welcome the day that the tipping point finally comes when .com top-level domains are no more special than .net, .biz, or whatever others ICANN ordains.
There was a time when only a 1-800 indicated a toll-free telephone number. Now, there are many and they are readily accepted.
The same will hold true for top-level domains.
The research found that .coms are, in the abstract, perceived more positively over the lesser-used .biz (et al) domains. This is not surprising: Familiarity breeds trust.
But that's today. The non-.com domains will eventually become more widespread and familiar as companies struggle and fail to find great .com names. The roster of today's bad web names goes on and on; companies compromise their name and ultimately their success just to secure a .com.
That's unwise. The Lexicon research also revealed that people's perceptions of an actual website did not differ no matter what its top-level domain. So in the end, the top-level domain doesn't change perceptions.
Dot com is already losing relevance. The strength of search engines like Google makes finding companies by their name, not their domain name, easy. As a name developer, I welcome the day that the tipping point finally comes when .com top-level domains are no more special than .net, .biz, or whatever others ICANN ordains.
There was a time when only a 1-800 indicated a toll-free telephone number. Now, there are many and they are readily accepted.
The same will hold true for top-level domains.
Birth of a descriptor
Hardcore naming geeks understand that moment of quickening, when first we discover a new generic descriptor in the wild. That happened to me tonight when I read this article about 'kitchen PCs.' As computer descriptors go, 'kitchen PC' is clear and distinctive. It's too bad the product names in the kitchen PC category fall short.
The Asus Eee Top is bizarre. Is that like "Eee, a mouse"? It's a head scratcher for sure.
The Dell Studio One name is flat though inoffensive. No one would get fired for choosing such a safe name. Not sure anyone would clamor to buy one either, at least not based on the name.
The MSI Wind Top (the company name seems to be MSI Wind) is also bizarre, though mainly because of the word Wind in the company name; it just sort of comes from left field. Perhaps two companies MSI and Wind merged and this is the Frankenstein result. One interesting quality of the name is that in isolation, I was inclined to read the "wind" of MSI Wind as a breeze. But when the word "wind" is followed by the word "top" I'm suddenly unsure if it should be wind with a long "i" as in "wind a top." The context actually makes pronunciation of the name more ambiguous.
Although the Wired article suggests the kitchen PC category is new, I remember the ahead-of-its-time 3Com Audrey from the turn of the century. Today's kitchen PC marketers would be well served to find product names a little more like Audrey and a lot less like Eee Top.
The Asus Eee Top is bizarre. Is that like "Eee, a mouse"? It's a head scratcher for sure.
The Dell Studio One name is flat though inoffensive. No one would get fired for choosing such a safe name. Not sure anyone would clamor to buy one either, at least not based on the name.
The MSI Wind Top (the company name seems to be MSI Wind) is also bizarre, though mainly because of the word Wind in the company name; it just sort of comes from left field. Perhaps two companies MSI and Wind merged and this is the Frankenstein result. One interesting quality of the name is that in isolation, I was inclined to read the "wind" of MSI Wind as a breeze. But when the word "wind" is followed by the word "top" I'm suddenly unsure if it should be wind with a long "i" as in "wind a top." The context actually makes pronunciation of the name more ambiguous.
Although the Wired article suggests the kitchen PC category is new, I remember the ahead-of-its-time 3Com Audrey from the turn of the century. Today's kitchen PC marketers would be well served to find product names a little more like Audrey and a lot less like Eee Top.
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