I won't debate the effectiveness of our branding, but, just so you know, Blogdigger was around a full two years before digg. And Talkdigger was inspired by our name (or so the founder told me).
I agree it's very difficult to come up with a good name nowadays without being or sounding derivative.
tsieling
· 3 years ago
So sorry that our name has caused you pain. For ma.gnolia, we really wanted the name magnolia for the product, but prying manolia.com away from Exxon, who owns it, was probably not going to happen. So we went with the next best thing which was to break up the name. We also thought it would be a good hat tip to del.icio.us but don't anymore as people seem predisposed to look at it as copying.
paulmcenany
· 3 years ago
Now, you just need to go back and figure out how many millions of dollars were wasted by all the companies you mentioned. I would bet it's a lot of Moola, or maybe a bunch of Dollrs.
Weave
· 3 years ago
Actually, Todd, I dig ma.gnolia a lot. Yours was the most imaginative of the companies using dotus-interruptus names.
Weave
· 3 years ago
Actually the more I think about it, Ma.gnolia doesn't belong on the list at all. It's certainly not ob.noxio.us, nor copying del.icio.us. Greg, I've updated Blogdigger and Talkdigger as well. I appreciate the comments...sorry for lumping you guys in.
GregGershman
· 3 years ago
No problem, thanks for the correction!
By the way, the other name I was considering back in the day was RSS (pronounced arse) Kicker; so we're at least not as bad as it could have been. ;)
Gareth Simpson
· 3 years ago
Do you think you could move Grabbr into the "at least they have an excuse" section.
It's a teeny tiny app I knocked together very quickly, specifically to upload to Flickr. I'm not trying to build a brand, the name was just the first thing that popped into my head.
I'm getting a bit bored that it has become a lightning rod for the dropping an e backlash ever since it got scoblized.
Ta :)
Weave
· 3 years ago
Thanks for the correction, Gareth.
tsieling
· 3 years ago
This is a great thing about blogs, where you have an idea, have a discussion, and evolve or refine the idea.
It's also characteristic of the web that we now live in an age of de-localized brands, where all these names can come before our eyes more easily and quickly, and we can see the patterns that happen around a new innovations. It doesn't mean, of course, that there aren't other innovations to be had in products that adopt a pop naming convention, but it does sort of situate their inspiration and aspects of their philosophy. Everyone wants to be in the busy party, and naming after a pattern can at least get you in the door. To be a hit, you still have to have the real goods behind you.
Antony
· 3 years ago
Occasionally someone mentions that the Web 2.0 names are some of the ugliest every to hit the planet; maybe it's an unconscious nose-thumb at the "pretty" names that ad agencies come up with.
All Comments
I agree it's very difficult to come up with a good name nowadays without being or sounding derivative.
By the way, the other name I was considering back in the day was RSS (pronounced arse) Kicker; so we're at least not as bad as it could have been. ;)
It's a teeny tiny app I knocked together very quickly, specifically to upload to Flickr. I'm not trying to build a brand, the name was just the first thing that popped into my head.
I'm getting a bit bored that it has become a lightning rod for the dropping an e backlash ever since it got scoblized.
Ta :)
It's also characteristic of the web that we now live in an age of de-localized brands, where all these names can come before our eyes more easily and quickly, and we can see the patterns that happen around a new innovations. It doesn't mean, of course, that there aren't other innovations to be had in products that adopt a pop naming convention, but it does sort of situate their inspiration and aspects of their philosophy. Everyone wants to be in the busy party, and naming after a pattern can at least get you in the door. To be a hit, you still have to have the real goods behind you.
But then they copy each other's names! I noticed this and did a post on a smaller list of dropped vowel names: http://www.namesatwork.com/blog/2006/07/02/what...
Flickr, Zooomr -- Whatevr!