The 15 dumbest names for Web 2.0 startups
I’m someone who frantically scours the web for interesting new online trends, concepts, startups and projects at any given time of any day. It’s something I simply can’t turn off, I just have a passion for finding new stuff and find out if it resonates with me from a user and business perspective. That also means I come across a mountain of poorly executed websites and applications, or startups that have business models that you just know will never bring in a dime of revenue.
But what strikes me most is the awful names that are given to services and applications. I realize naming is a difficult thing, and finding the domain name to match the name or description you have in mind is virtually impossible these days. I also realize names don’t necessarily have to be descriptive enough to sum up what you do in one or two words, as long as it’s memorable and distinctive enough.
How many people would have considered ‘Google’ a good name for a search engine in the late nineties or even at the dawn of the new millennium? Or Yahoo! for that matter?
Update: per request in the comments, here are some interesting articles on naming:
Seth Godin – the new rules of naming
Folksonomy – 7 tips for naming your Web 2.0 startup
GigaOm – 3 rules for naming your startup
LSVP blog – Naming your startup
Startup Spark - Everything You Need To Know About Naming a Startup
TechRepublic - The dos and don’ts of naming your start-up
GigaOM - A Two-part Rule for Naming Your Startup
Seth Godin – Sloppy naming
Fort Worth Startup blog – Naming your startup
Entrepreneur.com – Naming your business
Name Ideas - Naming Your Start-up: Simple Do’s and Don’ts
Guy Kawasaki – The Name Game
But still, here’s a list of 15 startups I personally think have some of the dumbest names in the Web 2.0 industry (note that I’m not judging their actual service), in no particular order:
1. Adaptive Blue
Develops personalization technologies that leverage semantics and attention.
My guess is they absolutely wanted to use the word ‘adaptive’ but were unable to get the right domain name, so they just picked any color and magically combined the words into something horrendously unmemorable.
2. Thoof
Personalized/social news recommender
Thoof. Pfoof. Floof. Any startup that gets named after a farting sound deserves to be on this list. Enough said. Note: Thoof was reportedly deadpooled, but the domain now points to Reddit. I wonder if this was a generous last configuration of the owner or an unreported acquisition?
3. Weebly
AJAX website creator
Weebly has some ring to it, but compare it to the names of their closest competitors (Synthasite, Webnode, KickApps, etc.) and it sounds more like a kid’s toy, or an adult website. I’m guessing ‘weeb’ is supposed to make you think of the term ‘web’, but I’m really not sure. According to UrbanDictionary, it can also refer to a monkey penis or someone who would do anything to get some attention.
4. Yoono
Social link and tag sharing network
Yoowhat? A typical example of a startup so desperate to have a two-syllable name that they’d have picked anything that sounded remotely pronounceable. Except of course you’re likely to forget the name or the spelling of it after a heartbeat.
5. Zlio
Gives users the ability to create their own shops and sell goods from other e-commerce services.
A ‘z’ isn’t meant to be followed by another consonant, and there’s a good reason for that. It’s not only hard to pronounce – I personally tied a knot in my tongue -, it’s also extremely forgettable.
6. Diigo
Social annotation service
Using ‘ii’ in your name is never a good idea. There’s absolutely no way you can talk about your startup without having to spell its name for people to actually find it on the web. When I search ‘digo’ (the most logical keyword to use when you hear the name), you won’t find it, but you will come across an internet phone service on the first page.
7. Heekya
Social storytelling platform
Whatever a ’social storytelling platform’ is, it doesn’t even matter if the name ‘Heekya’ doesn’t even refer to anything. I would love to see their employees pitch normal people about their service in plain English. And what’s with the dots above the e’s?
8. Insala
Web-based software for organizations implementing talent development, management, and retention initiatives.
Is this the name of a trendy salad bar? An islamic prayer? Or is it a synonym for Innovation, Customer Responsiveness and Focus, Employee Satisfaction, International Reach, Entrepreneurial Accomplishment and Rapid Growth? You guessed it, it’s supposed to be the last one.
9. Jiglu
Automatically creates intelligent tags for your web content.
While Jiglu on itself is already absolutely meaningless, painfully undescriptive and just not very catchy as a term, the entire product line is named after it: JigluTags, JigluHood, JigluMedia and JigluEnterprise. As if it was actually meant to create confusion about everything the startup produces.
10. Mzinga
Bbrings white-label social networks to consumer research.
Just like ‘z’ isn’t meant to be followed by a consonant, it’s better not to put it after a consonant, either. The word ‘Mzinga’ makes me think of an African warlord, or an exotic Hawaiian dance routine, but it certainly won’t make me go “Aha, that’s that white-label social networking site creator”. Gotta wonder how to came up with that one.
11. Oooooc.com
Provides a marketplace for contents and services.
Much like Zooomr and ooooj, it’s just too many o’s. How do they refer to their service? Worse, how do they point people to their website on the phone? “No it’s 5 o’s, c, dot c-o-m, sir … No no no, 5 times the letter ‘o’ … ah crap.” If you want to be the next-generation eBay, you might want to consider changing the name first, guys.
12. ooVoo
Attempts to add the human experience into communicating online with improved video and voice communication tools.
Same story as Yoono: it may sound pronounceable, but the fact that’s is so damn hard to remember the name and the spelling thereof doesn’t justify picking a two-syllable word. I mean, it sounds like an evil spell or a character from Star Wars.
13. SocialThing
Synchronizes your personal information, content, and friendships so that you can post this information across the social web.
It’s really hard coming up with a good name that starts with ’social’ anymore these days, but if you’re going to do it anyway, why pick something so blatantly generic as ‘thing’? It’s like they couldn’t figure out what their own product actually did, and they just talked about it as some ‘thing’ they were coding. Oh yeah, and the exclamation mark thing was very cool in the nineties.
14. Sclipo
Social learning network for teaching through video & webcam.
Say ’sclipo’ out loud. Enough said, right? It sounds like a name that’s been incubated by someone with a speaking disability. It reveals nothing about the product, which is fairly niche to begin with. Nada, zip, rien du tout. The only thing it makes me think of is the Roman politician Scipio.
15. CrazyEgg
Advanced analytics to track what your users are doing on your website.
This one, like Weebly, has some ring to it and with so many competitors it’s probably meant to stand out just a little. But CrazyEgg? Crazy. Egg. Sounds like they really wanted to have a logo with an egg in it and found out crazyegg.com wasn’t registered yet, so they just went for that name.
Did I miss any good, well, bad ones?
Let me know in comments what you think the dumbest name for a Web 2.0 startup is!
Robin Wauters is a Belgium-based social media consultant, startup advisor, blogger, entrepreneur, Twitter fanatic, conference organizer and allround web addict. Between trying out just about every new web application that gets in his sight, he advises local startups like ContactOffice, Oxynade and Yuntaa. And when he's not busy trying to keep tabs with what's going on in the virtualization & cloud computing industry as managing editor of Virtualization.com, he's probably working on the organization of Plugg, an annual celebration of European web entrepreneurship.
Well, you missed Fleck, Wakoopa, twones and Yahoo. :-)
One thing I was wondering about: people hardly ‘talk’ about the webservices anymore these days. You chat, twitter and email. There used to be a time when spelling was important because we talked to each other face to face or on the phone all the time. These days your name just has to look good. I don’t mean the logo. I mean it has to look good in Twitter and even in comment forms like this where they use Courier as the input font.
No, WE chat and Twitter. That doesn’t mean the mass audience does the same.
There was a time when the masses didn’t search or email, either.
Imho this is definitely the dumbest one : Oooooc.com
This article made my day :D
Thanks!
Nice fun article for a Monday Robin and you are absolutely correct. Creating names that create a lasting impression, capture the imagination or at the very least an impression of what something is/does is tricky. Allow me to provide a little colour to the decision to name our company ooVoo – you are certainly not the first person to question it and I dare say you won’t be the last.
When ooVoo was founded the company had the simple mantra of connecting people face to face online. We wanted to reflect this in the company’s name as a way of describing what we do. Two pairs of eyes represented by the letter “o” twice connected by “V” for video equates – it’s a visual representation of connecting two people face to face by video. As a brand we’ve grown, and ooVoo is being adopted quickly to the point that 5 million video conversations take place on a communication platform with an odd looking name. We honestly haven’t looked into how much the name has contributed to the success of the company as we’re really focused on creating the highest quality video chat service online.
Just in case you are having problems with the pronunciation here’s a quick tutorial video ;) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkhSZlAWt2M
Out of curiosity what’s the reasoning behind the names for “Yuntaa” or the “Plugg” conference that you represent? Can you provide a little guidance for entrepreneurs or point individuals to resources that might be helpful in naming conventions.
Best regards,
Philip
Hi Philip, thanks for the quick and honest feedback.
Note that I’m only a consultant to Yuntaa, I’m not a partner with the company although I think the name is rather good and sticky.
The origin of ‘Plugg’ is explained on the website: http://plugg.eu/about-plugg (bottom)
I also updated the post with a couple of links to interesting articles about naming your startup.
Oooooc.com is defintely the dumbest one I’ve ever heard of. But as Boris mentioned Yahoo! is pretty dumb as well, but well, I guess it’s all good once you’re used to it.
These are some pretty wacky names. It reminds me of discussions we had after our first website rollout.
Our site was meant to be the next big thing in college student resources, so we thought it’d be cool to call it IamProximus.com. Unfortunately, since Latin is no longer a required subject, we quickly wised up and changed it to something more meaningful to college students, and after rechristening it as College-Cram.com we got much better results.
hilarious! wakoopa def should be in there!
There were a bunch of vowels left over from all the other web 2.0 names so we got a really good deal on some letter o’s. “Yoono” was the best way for us to use them.
Cute :)
..Adam Jackson wins with a company that is also a triple point score on Scrabble used the right way.
Can I change my answer now… ? ;)
I loved this article. Well done Robin.
The importance of names is also critical when considering that the English language, Chinese and Spanish are the three most commonly-used first languages online at present. If something is unclear, its lack of clarity across country and language barriers will only be magnified – not a good business strategy.
Disclosure: This link is for one of my companies: http://clarocada.com/clarocada.....or-profit/ – and we make the point that “…potential customers immediately have doubt in their minds as to your ability, and your professionalism. Online, you can’t afford that. Your competitors are a click away. Click. Gone.”
If you are so smart, how come you have 0 traffic?
http://www.alexa.com/data/deta.....extweb.org
You’re right, we’re idiots and we don’t have any traffic. So why are you wasting your time coming here and commenting (anonymously at that)?
Wow, there are 4,130,000 Google results for John Doe. Are you the real one?
C’mon guys, dont spend your time replying to these comments just to increase your website by 5 page views :) lol
Not only the names…. it’s the similarity of logo’s… they all look alike somehow this often adds to the total stupidity of the name.
Some individuality would be welcome here
I agree some names are a bit unusual but we need to look at the numbers too, no?
Icanhascheezburger … a site about cats and doing big numbers!
And what sticks is important as well. I can’t seem to forget the name Thoof.
I made a collage this weekend using the typical web 2.0 logos.
I used logos from companies who are experiencing the bursting bubble. Thoof’s on it, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it went poof, it might have been a good name because it’s the first one that comes to my mind.
Although I have to say I have no idea what it means. And maybe that’s not so good. I’m no expert in this.
Hahhaha! That was totally hilarious..and I’m wondering what you’d have to say about “marcellus”..????????
Well it made me think of Pulp Fiction instantly, which is NEVER a bad thing to do :)
Ah! Spot on, spot on.
About 1 in every 50 actually get it. 20-odd wonder WTF we’re talking about, and the rest go right back to Greek/Roman mythology…to Claudius Marcellus.
I’m going to try and make sure you’re one of the first ones to hear about “mia” before we launch it in the Fall.
Until then…it’s back to a pack o’ Red Apples for me..;)
You forgot StumbleUpon. That name grates on my ears like nails on a chalkboard.
Absolutely love the name ‘StumbleUpon’. It’s very descriptive, remarkable, an actual phrase often used, hard to mispronounce,etc.
That’s the exact reason that the name StumbleUpon annoys me; because it tries to subjugate the oft-used phrase “I stumbled upon …”.
If I’m going to a site called StumbleUpon in order to find news, I’m not really stumbling upon anything, am I? No. Furthermore, stumbling is not cool :)
Also, I forgot Digg. I hate this name because of it’s double meaning. I feel like a total tool if I want to vote some piece of news up to the front page and the story is about some pregnant high-schooler leaving her baby in a dumpster.
I don’t really “dig” it, but it’s an important piece of news so I have to press the “digg it” button. Ugg, that’s annoying.
Wait, stumble upon doesn’t just serve up random URLs? Honestly I’ve never visited it because that’s what the name implied to me…
I don’t agree on yoono: I instantly understood it as the phonetic representation of “You know”, which is basically what it is about, I guess: the links and tags that you know.
But then again, http://www.youknow.com/ is for sale, so who knows?
That’s exactly what I thought.
This conversation is way much more fun-ner than the ones on TC these days.
I actually get a little stressed out on there these days…is it just me + caffeine + arrington turning out to be a bad combo, or are there others who’re kinda sorta in sync?
i agree with the list, except from crazyegg.com, imo it’s a kick-ass name with personality. no more stupid than Coca-Cola
totally,
crazyegg
i mean that is hilarious
hahahahhaahha crazyegg !!!!!
Gotta point out:
Coca-cola is a pretty generic descriptive when you think of the original product… A drink containing extracts from coca leaves (Cocaine) and kola roots (where all colas get their name). Doesn’t seem quite so stupid in this context…
There are definitely dumber names out there. From Seattle there’s Pluggd (now Delve) and the absolute dumbest name ever:
Thinglefin.
Just try saying “Thinglefin” without sounding like a lisping half-wit.
Yeah, Thinglefin’s bad.
Mahalo, hands down.
Oh, the irony…
http://venturebeat.com/2008/10.....g-plugins/
(AdaptiveBlue brings in $4.5M for Browsing Plugins – from VentureBeat)
these two articles appeared back-to-back in my newsreader. I guess the horrible name isn’t hurting adaptiveblue too badly.
Yeah, saw that too. As I wrote, not judging the services per se.
oooooc reminds me of http://www.rrrrthats5rs.com
Heekya might make more sense to you if I told you “hekaya” (rough transliteration) is Arabic for “story”.
Yep. Another good translation is “tale” as in two cities.
The exact pronunciation of Heekya is wrong as it should be something like Heekaya. The Arabic word has an explicit long vowel after the k.
Intersting article from someone who has a name not phonetically spelled “correctly.” Maybe your names should be #16 on your list. LOL
What about Pelago (and their vowel-less product Whrrl)?
But what about Flickr and Orkut?
The worst names in Dutch speaking regions!
I second that :)
PS: Model names of cars also have these problems. Try to pronounce Toyota MR-II (em-èr-deux sounds like merdeu) or translate Mitsubishi Pajero from Spanish to e.g. English :)
What about http://socialtops.com, good service, bad web2 name
Cuil — hands down.
Agreed, if you need to explain how to pronounce your domain name then it’s not a good choice.
Think that oooooc.com is pretty hard to remember due to the o’s however i’m fond of the name weebly and the service they provide – maybe like people the names eventually take on a new meaning once you get to know them. We had a longlist then a shortlist then pretty much ran our finger down list with eyes closed and picked zungalow. Doesn’t mean anything in English though there is an Eastern European musician named zungalo.
Here’s our take on it: http://blog.heekya.com/2008/10.....s-for.html
So what exactly does Heekya mean ?
There’s a Swahili word, Hikaya, that means story. I searched the word “story” and its ilk, in many languages, both major and smaller — such as my native Yoruba — and settled on Swahili not just for the beautiful world it inspired, but for the essence of the language. Swahili, as I’m sure some of you know, and maybe many of you don’t, is not really a native African language. It is 35% arabic (Hikaya also means story in Arabic as well) and is a mixture of Bantu, and generally, the language’s origin is uncertain. We like that for a few reasons, but mostly because Swahili is of many people, not really belonging to any of those peoples.
Such is a story. Each person has a unique narrative to tell, and we’re creating a platform for any one to tell that story. That story, such as Swahili, may not really belong to you, but to belong to everybody –especially those who participated in the story who happened to be there.
One bright reader, Josef Assad , points out in the comments what we at Heekya already know:
Heekya might make more sense to you if I told you “hekaya” (rough transliteration) is Arabic for “story”
And what is a social storytelling platform? Why do we call Heekya the “Wikipedia for Stories? ”
We’ve called Heekya “Wikipedia for Stories” and “scrapbooking for all of your digital media” but it is much more than that.
Daehee Park, editor-in-chief of ISTbuilding.com and a Junior at Penn State described Heekya as such:
Think of it as a way to aggregate people’s life experiences through all forms of media, while weaving similar entries together with the Heekya algorithm to allow users to discover relevant stories. Why is this idea different? A typical blog is an embodiment of one’s ego which is haphazardly linked with others’ blogs through hyperlinks. Other life streaming tools such as Twitter and Flickr all focus around the individual, where you must follow a person of interest.
However, through geo-targeting, semantic processing and external embedding, Heekya is building the ideal channel of storytelling. And, along with it, comes a new social network that forms around a flourishing cloud of interweaving life experiences.
And of course, you may want to know why storytelling even matters ?
Storytelling is one of the few human traits that are truly universal across culture and through all of known history. [...] People in societies of all types weave narratives, from oral storytellers in hunter-gatherer tribes to the millions of writers churning out books, television shows and movies.
Whether fiction or nonfiction, a narrative engages its audience through psychological realism–recognizable emotions and believable interactions among characters.
As our ancestors evolved to live in groups, the hypothesis goes, they had to make sense of increasingly complex social relationships. Living in a community requires keeping tabs on who the group members are and what they are doing. What better way to spread such information than through storytelling?
We appreciate the mention, Robin, and we’re going to keep building the next generation storytelling platform here at Heekya .
That’s why we say at Heekya, ‘Your Story Lives Here.’
Cool, thanks for taking the time to write a response!
yoono translates to “not me” in spanish
InSala = something in the living room (spanglish)
but i think FFFFound should be there.
imeem.com – not so dumb when they started out as a social chat/file sharing (IM + meme) application, but when they dumped that and became youtube for music it seems the name didn’t help them. Most people out there see to have a blind spot for imeem and manage to forget that they have more users than any other social music site, at least they did until myspace music copied all their hard work. Hell, most tech bloggers were falling over themselves to praise muxtape for its innovation, even though the same mixtape feature had been promoted on imeem for years before Justin came up with a cooler name.
What about crush3r.com? Try remembering that one?
Woopra.
Um yeah, those are bad names! Seems there are plenty to go around. I couldn’t limit myself to just 15 when I wrote a similar post back in April: Seriously bad startup names
Personally, I like adaptiveblue. The first time I heard it I thought of adapting to the infinite abyss. Which it helps you do. Adapt your browsing to the abyss that is the web. So, I think you’re off there.
The other ones that aren’t words in any language, I would have to agree!
Google … wtf is up with that shiznit?
Yea, you forgot Plugg, sounds like a plumber business or something
I’m a bit biased, but I like the name Plugg :)
Hardest part was coming up with a name that sounds ok in French, Dutch, English, German, Spanish and Italian.
I have two words for you, Crazy Egg.
This silliness should end once the new TLDs kick in. In the meantime, we have no choice but to keep registering crazy domain names.
to be honest I don’t give a damn about the name…
the service is what matters…
FWIX – a feed with a mix. give me a break
[...] The 15 Dumbest Names for Web Startups – and, some helpful links to good naming articles by bloggers. Nice collection by Robin Wauters. [...]
Nice post. However, iinet do pretty well for themselves in Australia. I agree though that this is probably in spite of the name rather than because of it.
My nomination: splicd.com
SPLICKED? They “spliced” the word “spliced” in exactly the worst way.
Very interesting and inspired article Robin…
To be honest, I got scared twice while reading the TOP 15 !
1° My website : http://www.yooron.com (very close to something you made fun – see #4 and #12)
2 – My last name “Mazingue” very close to your #10 MZinga !
I guess, I have to live with it.
Take care & have fun
X
How about Gnip… (pron. “guh-nip”)
The 15 dumbest names for Web 2.0 startups…
Here’s a list of 15 startups I personally think have some of the dumbest names in the Web 2.0 industry (note that I’m not judging their actual service)…
“There’s absolutely no way you can talk about your startup without having to spell its name for people to actually find it on the web”
As opposed to, say, Plugg? Heh.
I guess I could have seen those coming :)
As I wrote in another comment to this article:
“I’m a bit biased, but I like the name Plugg :)
Hardest part was coming up with a name that sounds ok in French, Dutch, English, German, Spanish and Italian.”
The hint in the beautiful Jiglu logo of a jigsaw man? The description about how we’re piecing the web together? The interplay between the first half of the word jigsaw and most of the word glue? Obviously way too subtle then in conveying what we do…
Forgive me if I wrong, but do I sense a little tension there? :)
‘Tags that think’?
‘Piecing the web together’?
Yeah, crystal clear for sure. Your pay-off and website copy are even worse than the name Jiglu.
There’s something reassuring to me about Adaptive Blue. Their products seem high quality, and I’ve no problem with their name.
But some of the others…
I have these guys on my mind today:
Zoho.com
Drupal.org
joomla.org
Why would one not care about SEO when it comes to picking a name?
Another issue is how your startup sounds in other languages, what are people associations with the name.
F.e. a UK startup Zopa – sounds like ass in Russian.
Or russian startup http://www.picollator.com sounds like too much drinking alcohol in French ;)
Love the article
Always fun and difficult to pick a good name.
My 2 cents:
Edgeio (deadpooled)
YouBeQB
Sclipo
Sampa
CrazyEgg is a good name. Its memorable, fun to say, and easy to spell… certainly more so then any boring name that would be descriptive of analytic services.
why not have fun with a name? Its a good way to encourage word of mouth exposure.
What a bunch of warped cubicle-hamster, corporate gobbledy-gook.
I think ooVoo happens to be a pretty good name, and it’s pretty easy to remember. Not any different than “Skype” in my opinion/
This is great to see someone pick on “web 2.0″ names finally. I think the trend was great, but as always, there are few that take it to weird dimensions. Good post!
“Using ‘ii’ in your name is never a good idea.”
Yeah, because we all know what a failure ‘Wii’ was…
I’ve just re-invted the meaning of ‘lol’. Thanks for this funny analysis of the 2.0 namespace.
our organization uses a company called “Hot Banana” for web content management…although they were acquired and are in the process of phasing the name out.
good company, bad name.