People sometimes ask me why the take up in new technologies is slower than the pace at which new services are coming to market. There are plenty of reasons but one that I think is less well articulated is the choice of name. Take for instance GoLark, which Mashable describes as: “Digg for events, for leveraging recommendations.” The idea of recommendations makes a lot of sense but can you imagine trying to explain the name to a potential service buyer?
Better still, take a look at TechCrunch’s deadpool to get a flavour of what I mean. Who are these marketing geniuses that dream up names like Froogle, Bitpass and Backfence? For a complete list of 2008′s candidates for the deadpool, check this list out. I’m betting a good 50% of these services won’t exist by the end of 2008. The names alone are enough of a turn off. I sure as heck couldn’t walk into a client and say something like: “There’s this really great service that allows you to create interactive flash posters. It’s called Glogster” with anything approaching a straight face. Could you?
