> yes, to us (the techies), but there are billions of people in the world who didn't know who or what gmail was for a at least 4-5 years. I specifically made the observation of geemail sounding like email because I had that experienced less than a decade ago giving the address to a dentist's secretary in Denmark.

I would say you have to look at the alternative names - hotmail? yahoo.com? gmail sounds like a fantastic choice.

> That said what do you mean by successful? I mean great marketing being required for successful makes you think that the only successful companies can be ones you've heard of, because how successful can a company be that you've never heard of.

Your target customers know who you are.

> And on that note when I tell people I used to work for Thomson Reuters and nobody knows who that is I suppose this means Thomson Reuters is not a successful company?

Random people are not customers of Thomson Reuters and Thompson Reuters is not in a market of converting them. Those that consume news content as a part of their product know who Thompson Reuters is.