New York Times on Seussical-Sounding Web Site Names

The evolution of domain names from ones that more or less specified what you were going to find at a web site – Sears.com, Staples.com, McDonalds.com and Microsoft.com are examples given – to those that are there to catch your attention, often with no rhyme or reason other than it’s a somewhat nonsensical name is the focus of a recent New York Times article.The article notes “These days, startups take the lazy way out: they choose goofy-sounding nonsense words. They think they’re being clever by being unclever.”These are all actual Web sites that have hit the Web in the last year or so: Doostang. Wufoo. Bliin. Thoof. Bebo. Meebo. Meemo. Kudit. Raketu. Etelos. Iyogi. Oyogi. Qoop. Fark. Kijiji. Zixxo. Zoogmo.”The NYT claims the registrants hope these names will stick in our minds, but says “they’re wrong. Actually, all those twentysomething entrepreneurs are ensuring that we won’t remember them. Those names all blend together into a Dr. Seuss 2.0 jumble.”The article concludes, “But here’s a little wakeup call: People will learn to love your site’s wacky name only if they fall in love with the site itself. Google and Yahoo became household nutty names only because everyone loved their services. They did not succeed because they had silly names.”And when you name your site Yambo or Roombee, that’s a lot less likely to happen. You’re stacking the deck against your own success.”The full article is available from the New York Times at www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/technology/personaltech/06pogue-email.html or pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/the-dr-seuss-jumble-naming-web-sites/