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Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

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Re: Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

#41

Post by sandGorgon »

franky47 wrote: post #30
sandGorgon wrote: post #12

Nextjs is most likely going to be the new Ruby on Rails. javascript all the way down, static rendering, PWA, server side rendering...everything baked in. This is a big backing for Next. However rebranding to Vercel is bad.

That's the objective of Blitz.js [1]: build on top of Next.js for a rails-like experience, but made by an independent open-source community. [1] https://blitzjs.com/ - https://github.com/blitz-js/blitz

This is very cool.

One suggestion - I highly recommend you mention that you're leveraging nextjs. There is a certain buy-in that nextjs has that would be hard elsewhere.

In fact I would say that I would totally pay an annual subscription for this (even on "starter marketplaces" like themeforest).

Re: Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

#43

Post by covidcovidcovid »

sandGorgon wrote: post #12

Nextjs is most likely going to be the new Ruby on Rails. javascript all the way down, static rendering, PWA, server side rendering...everything baked in. This is a big backing for Next. However rebranding to Vercel is bad.

I prefer to use other languages on backend something like C#, because JavaScript is too error-prone. You can't even just add two numbers (try (0.1 + 0.2) === 0.3) without some workarounds. and there are millions other issues with the language.

Re: Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

#44

Post by kernelsanderz »

CPLX wrote: post #23
choward wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just marketing speak. It doesn't actually explain why they changed their name.

I mean it’s a complete and total wild ass guess but the obvious reason to change one’s name is if you’ve identified another entity that is using that name in a way which could prevent you from global exclusive use of the brand. It’s the kind of thing that could easily have come up in due diligence for the large recent investment.

Doing a quick search of TESS2 for trademarks look they already have the trademark registered for ZEIT (registered in 2017). So it was probably for other reasons. Which is a shame, because Zeit is very concise, easy to remember, and has a strong brand today - at least with their initial audience.

Sounds like they're trying to go for a more corporate customer with their new name.

Re: Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

#45

Post by adriand »

As someone who has been involved in many branding projects, it is amusing to see all the negative commentary on the rebrand. This is human nature 101. Everyone always hates rebrands. In fact I am willing to bet that the executives who eventually bought into this new name also hated the new name when they heard it.

Whenever we presented a new name to a company that wanted to be rebranded, we always asked them not to provide any feedback on the name until they had given it a day or two to sink in. Almost invariably the feedback was, “I hated it when I first heard it, but it has really grown on me.”

Examples of names that would be very easy to criticize on first hearing that have become incredibly successful brands abound. Google is a stupid and juvenile-sounding name. Now it’s a verb. I won’t waste your time with more examples.

Re: Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

#46

Post by netsharc »

brazzy wrote: post #38
karanganesan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

curious why was the name Zeit not preferred?

It's a German word and the name of one of Germany's biggest newspapers, and probably part of the name of dozens of businesses in all kinds of industries in Germany. Using a made-up brand name is the standard way to avoid potential trademark conflicts, and at the same time be more easily findable via Google.

Yeah, not having your name instantly googleable in Germany (a big economy with a lot of developers) is probably a hindrance. Not to mention how stupid it would be to use in a sentence, imagine calling your product "Time", and a developer says e.g. "we're having issues with time.."

Re: Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

#49

Post by acdibble »

covidcovidcovid wrote: post #43
sandGorgon wrote: post #12

Nextjs is most likely going to be the new Ruby on Rails. javascript all the way down, static rendering, PWA, server side rendering...everything baked in. This is a big backing for Next. However rebranding to Vercel is bad.

I prefer to use other languages on backend something like C#, because JavaScript is too error-prone. You can't even just add two numbers (try (0.1 + 0.2) === 0.3) without some workarounds. and there are millions other issues with the language.

It's not just JavaScript with that issue... https://0.30000000000000004.com/

Re: Vercel, formerly Zeit, raises $21M Series A

#50

Post by sholladay »

I gave up on Zeit when Now v2 came out because, besides it being more complex and a pain to migrate to, they went back on their promises about no vendor lock-in. Up until late 2018, their site had a very different philosophy that they abruptly abandoned. [1] [2]

Fool me once...

1: https://web.archive.org/web/20181107092845/https://zeit.co/n...

2: https://web.archive.org/web/20181107092845/https://zeit.co/n...

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