Clever Names Aren’t Always a Good Thing

I remember reading somewhere that the name "Ninite" actually was generated by a script which checked for available .com domains.

Found it: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

It's funny, since Ninite ran a very elaborate process to find that very name:

http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

To me it seems like nailing the perfect 2nd level .com domain isn't as important as before. How often does the average user type a URL directly, rather than typing key words into a Google search field?

We geeks seem to have a fixation on clever names. I loved the name "Froogle", but Google made a wise move in changing it to "Google Product Search" (much friendlier to its target users).

Speaking of which, Google's own name was a particularly geeky choice. I wonder if their users had a hard time remembering what it was or typing it in back in Google's early days.

I'm not immune to geeky name choices myself. I chose "Debonware" as a website name a few years back. (It was a lame play on words on "debonair" and "software".) I later abandoned it and switched to "Domador Software". That's still a bit iffy, and not as memorable to English speakers as it would be to Spanish speakers. However, I called my main product "Two-Click Reminder", which is mostly descriptive, not very clever, yet should be much easier for users to remember and be able to search for later on.

I've suffered the exact same inability to remember the name Ninite.

After a while, the name finally stuck, but I've had multiple "scramble around on Google trying to find it again" incidents, as the author described.

Though recently, I got myself a Pinboard account, and now I ruthlessly tag and bag any site/tool I might want to find again.