I just wish people could be a little more creative instead of being so blatantly unoriginal.
- del.icio.us
-
- extisp.icio.us
- Fo.rtuito.us
- SingleStat.us
- Tourb.us
- Flickr
-
- Talkr
- Zooomr
- Browsr
- Wrickr
- Isolatr
- SoonR
- Scanr
- Gtalkr
- Retrievr
- Variations on a theme
-
- Ma.gnolia
- Co.mments
- Eye.fi
- web2.0OrNot
- blo.gs
Did I get’em all?
Source: TechCrunch Company and Product Index★
LOL! I actually did not realize this trend was so widespread. I guess if you want to be cool and hip you need to associate yourself with the existing cool and hip sites.
Although, IMHO retrivr is totally excused, as it’s in fact a flickr extension. For them it absolutely makes sense to use a flickr like name.
Gtalkr seems to be dead (they decided to shut down their project) so I guess you can remove it from the list.
Btw, what is the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?
You drop randm vovls and use ex.ten.siv pun.ctu.ation :)
Actually I do like co.mment.com since it is very appropriate. But yup it is fashion and I am waiting for blogs to integrate it in the url-sentences now.
But your choice of animals is quite *cough* original :-P
Luke: Yeah, I didn’t bother actually checking all of them. I noticed that del.icio.us has one called direct.or or something, which was an obvious one (re: retriever). The difference between web 1.0 and 2.0? I’d say hype, but there’s just as much of it (if not more in 2.0). Most people can’t tell you what web 2.0 really is apart from a lot of buzz words and the resurgence of JavaScript. Take a look at the Answers.com entry for Web 2.0. It’ll give you a lot of info, in particular the Wikipedia section.
franky: I’m not actually “bashing” the sites themselves. Just their unoriginal naming styles. You know, Flickr hits the scene and now suddenly all these other sites are dropping the vowel right before the letter “r”. Same thing with the crazy dots everywhere (although that can be easily attributed to a lack of decent domain names because of all the squatter jerks out there abusing the registrar system). Oh and the cats… uhm, that’s because they represent “copycats”… get it, copy… cats…? ;-)
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, but I meant the url of co.mment. Together with delicious and scriptaculous actually the nicest use/combination of this ‘technic’ IMHO.
Sometimes I just wonder how easy those urls are for daily use.
No comment on domain squatters. I think we know the story of Newsvine.com and that example explained enough. It just gets worse if you have a unique name and even can’t get that one because bots tracked and registered your name. Or a jerk did.
Yeah I did get the cats ;-)
Blatantly unoriginal might be a bit harsh. We put quite a lot of thought into our domain name, and I’m happy to offer some background on why we chose it. Primarily we really wanted the name Magnolia for our social bookmarking service – it worked really well for the kind of web experience that we were trying to create, and was inspired by the movie of the same name. Recognizing that Exxon owns the magnolia.com domain name from its purchase of that company years back, we knew we wouldn’t get it and turned to the subdomain naming strategy to get us there.
We were also aware that del.icio.us had been the first widely recognized site to use that naming strategy, and had revived social bookmarking from its first incarnations in the late 90s. Knowing that we were sharing some fundametal concepts with them, the spa.ced domain name was intended to be a nod of acknowledgement of their pioneering status. Moreover, the naming style situates us in an exciting time where it’s easy to spin out different takes on a concept that wasn’t started by anyone still in the game.
I hope that gives a clearer picture of why we chose the name we have. By coincidence, I had a similar discussion with Gareth over at Brand Dialogue (http://www.branddialogue.com/2006/06/16/names-that-hurt/#comments) just two days ago, where a very similar blog post expressed the the same lament. What are the odds.
Todd: Touché! To be honest, I was hesitant to even include the “variations on a theme” part because (as I also mentioned in an earlier comment) I understand that a lot of good domain names are just not available anymore. Also, using a dotted name isn’t so much copying as it is, say, following a trend (not to mention the reasoning you just gave which makes sense). Oh, and I’ve never even heard of branddialogue.com (though I’m going over to take a look now). This has actually been on my mind for a while and I just figured I’d write about it.
Note to self: Remember, you never know who’s reading your blog.
Ara: The Web 2.0 comment was a joke. I was implying that the only difference between “normal” and Web 2.0 websites is that they have fashionably sounding names with dropped vovels (flickr) or dotted punctuation (del.icio.us)
And yeah, Todd is right. I think in many cases this is not a bad thing. For example, if you see a punctuated domain name like you might assume that it is some sort of folksonomy/social bookmarking site.
If your name sounds or looks similar to del.icio.us people will likely assume that your site has similar focus.
*Ara:* I think what could be very interesting would be to see some thinking on the pros and cons of choosing an online product name that follows a hip and trendy pattern. I think we all need a space to vent on a pet peeve now and then, but we just see so much of that when analysis and ideas are what we come to the web looking for.
I know I’d find that worth reading, but I urge such writing to go easy on the j’accuse. Some services that replicate a naming pattern are started by one or two people and often by younger folks with programming but not marketing or branding savvy. Their use of a name similar to something else might just be innocence or crediting an inspiration rather than a lack of creativity or copycat tendencies. Moreover, they’re out there creating something, so let’s meet them on those grounds and say what would help to grow their idea. I have a pretty thick skin, but I can imagine the feeling of a lone 20-something who just spent a few dozen hours coding up some ideas just to read ‘your name is unoriginal.’
Blogging is so easy that it tempts us to sound off rather than reflect. Ara, I’m not trying to pick on you here. I don’t think there was malice in your post at all. But I wanted to offer the perspective about the art of the critique that I’ve gained in the five months since helping to bring Ma.gnolia to the world.
Oh my gosh, this is so true.
Don’t forget Frappr.com
Todd: The reason “copycat brands” are a pet peeve of mine is largely because I have a natural tendency toward “copycatism” myself and it’s something I have worked hard at trying to avoid (and haven’t always been successful at it).
My initial reaction to people who copy successful products (like on late night infomercials) is that they’re just being greedy and profiting from someone else’s original idea. I guess it’s unrealistic though to expect everyone to come up with something original and for there to be exclusivity in the marketplace. That would of course lead to no competition, and that’s no good for the consumer. So there’s obviously nothing new in “copycatting” successful products. You see it on TV all the time (read: Mr. Clean MagicReach vs. Swiffer).
I did take your advice and tried to look up some info on brand copycatting and the only thing that kept coming up was the loss of market share of Brand A to Brands B, C, and D. From that I can only infer that the marketplace doesn’t actually have much of a problem with copycatting because people are willingly leaving Brand A to go to Brands B, C, and D.
Though I don’t really have a problem with people loosely following trends (i.e. the dotted brand/domain name), you have to admit that brands that are really unrelated to, say Flickr, who use the same naming scheme because Flickr is successful, are kinda stretching it.