"You can't judge a book by its cover", some say. That is, of course, bogus. I can and certainly have done so and will do so again.
Would "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"? Probably. But it won't smell at all if you've never heard of it enough to find one.
And therein - to borrow from Mr. Shakespeare a second time - lies the rub. Some names function better than others. Some names stick. Some names like my beloved "Super Duper" college grocery store make us happy just in saying them.
And now I'm going to tell you why. I'm also going to humbly stick my name on this theory which is mine and what it is too.
Matt's Conjecture: "Companies / brands / media are far more likely to succeed if they choose three or fewer syllable names".
"No way", you say. "Surely, the goodness of a company transcends syllable counts!". My answer: "not really".
"Oh!" you reply mockingly, "so you're saying I can throw a {1, 2, 3} syllable name on my loser company and cash in?".
I say, "actually, I wasn't going to say that, but now that I think about, yes. Or at least maybe."
The advantages of having a 3 or less-syllable name (and/or, the disadvantages of having a 4+ syllable name) seem to be enormous. Let's try Internet company names on for size:
| 1 syllable | 2 syllables | 3 syllables | 4 syllables | 5+ syllables |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Ask Bing Digg Fark go Pets Skype Yelp |
About Apple Archive(.org) Blogger Blogspot craigslist DropBox eBay Etsy Flickr github Glassdoor Hotmail huffpo(*) hulu IE(*) Inktomi Lycos memway myspace Netflix Netscape (*) Orbitz PayPal SalesForce Snapchat Tumblr Wordpress Yahoo Youtube Zombo |
Amazon AOL del.icio.us GoDaddy imgur LendingClub livejournal mozilla msn Pandora vimeo |
deviantart imdb dailymotion metacafe stackoverflow stumbleupon Travelocity Wikipedia |
rottentomatoes Travelocity Wikipedia |
I know where I'd want to be on that list.
Lots more to come...including what the (*) mean, but refute away in the meantime...if you dare.
