Friday, October 05, 2007

What's in a name?

How do you get great word of mouth for a new website that you are planning to launch and not have to put a lot of effort into enticing people to talk about it? Well, that's easy. Pick a few really bad possible names for the thing and tell a few select folks about your plan to use one of those names and watch the chaos fly.

I have been watching the folks at PayPerPost for a while now, went through the whole trial by fire for those who are not afraid to have a little bit of sponsorship for their blogs and got my tail raked across the coals of the blogosphere a time or two for having the audacity to know that my readership can think for themselves.

So, what is this latest hubbub about? There is a bit of slight of hand going on, or at least that is what it looks like to me, over at the PayPerPost offices.

Here on the left waving like a magician we have the apparent best of the ideas for the new platform that is being developed that will present, in the words of Ted Murphy, "...a slew of new services designed to deliver on our company mission. 'To empower everyone to value and exchange content, creativity and influence.'"

So,what are these magic hats that I think are no more than a distraction from the dove tucked into the sleeve of the other hand?

bzzooka.com
wompow.com
tremblor.com
cloudshout.com

............ uhhh... yeah. My reaction too. I took a few days waiting to watch and ponder if I should say anything or not, but I figure by now the snickering has got audible coming from the PayPerPost office so I will go ahead and add in my two cents and call their bluff. I don't think any of those are anything more than hype names to get people talking about their new launch and spread stuff like wildfire all over the Internet. I mean, really, think about this from a marketing perspective (and we all know that if he is anything Ted Murphy is a marketing genius), you stumble in public and everyone is going to be standing there ready to snicker and point at the fall. How do you publicly stumble online? You announce something that makes everyone do a ::face palm:: and watch the blogosphere light up with your name.

'Did you see what so-and-so is doing now?', 'OMG I can't believe they are going to...', 'No, it's true! I heard it from my third cousin twice removed on my step-grandnieces side!'..... Ah... the buzz of the Internet.

So, which name do I like the best? I must confess that I agree with nearly everyone I have seen and the four presented to the blogosphere are all a little... ummm... not exactly the best of choices, so I'll just kick back here and watch what the magician is going to pull out of that carefully held still hand while he is waving that hat full of kooky names around. I'm fairly sure it'll be something good, and if not... well... you can bet there will be one hell of a launch to make sure we all remember the name and why it was chosen.

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