Steve Rubel contemplates Dot-Com-Bubble 2.0 in a recent post, which contains an image of lots of logos. Logos of so-called Web 2.0 companies. Go ahead and check out the image, and see if you don’t notice something weird. Not the logos themselves, which (thankfully) are mostly swoosh–less, in contrast to their 1.0 counterparts. But look at the names. The names, for goodness’ sake. Someone tell me, what the hell is going on here? Yedda? Renkoo? Noodly? Jambo? Zimbra? Is this Very Smart Marketing, or have we left branding creativity in the hands of our linguistically experimental one-year-olds?
Well, I can do it, too. I’m going to go ahead and think up a name for this type of name… let’s see… Smoogly. Cute and fuzzy names which (often) don’t mean a thing, doing their best to create a Google-ish marketing tidal wave. But, as I’m sure people will point out to me, even Google means something. Actually, it makes complete sense.
Therefore, I shouldn’t complain (I’m not really complaining, just overreacting). These names are so very Web 2.0. They are so smoogly. Smoogly goo ga ga. Come on, brainstorm with me! Got a new AJAX e-mail-tagging-list-social-bookmark-photo-sharing-blog-pod-vid-narrow-casting-wiki company and don’t have a name for it? Help is on the way! How about the name Smogul? Take it, it’s yours! Peeza (AJAX Italian hotel-booking application)? Keepo (free 27Gb web storage?), Wanno (wish-list management application)? Bapplr? Pazaaaaka? Woozoo, Zipza, Yazdee? These names are all…well… smoogly, don’t you agree?
:)
You’d be surprised how hard it is to come by a name…
Anyway, I am glad you find Yedda to be smoogly – the actual meaning of the name is described in one of the recent posts in the Yedda Team blog.
Yaniv, you’re a good sport, and you’re right– names are very difficult indeed. People still ask me why we named our web development company after a spice. I’ve looked at your blog, and I’m very interested to see what your team is cooking up with Yedda. All the best.