Their new name seems to have the same problem.
For example:
Learndot: "Email me at paul-at-learn-dot-dot-com"
Customer: "learn dot com?"
Learndor "No, learn dot dot com"
Customer "???"
The thing is, we never say the domain. We say the name of the company. I totally agree that "Learn dot dot com" is confusing. But "Learn dot" isn't. Vast majority of people use Google to find things on the web (that was the theory). Last couple weeks of trying it out has backed that up.
Learndot: "Our company is called learndot."
Customer: "Learn dot what?"
Learndot: "Learn dot nothing - that's the name of the company."
Customer: "Learn dot nothing?"
Learndot: "Well, dot com."
Customer: "Learn dot com? Why didn't you say that?"
Learndot: "No, it's learn dot dot com."
Customer: "Dot dot?"
Learndot: "No, the first dot is spelled dee-oh-tee."
Customer: "???"
I hope I'm not coming across as snarky. Naming isn't easy.
We went through similar issues in our rebranding, with both a dot and pronounceability (D.NEA). In our case, the '.' is not spelled out, and the domain works with or without it (d.neadiamonds.com). Being primarily internet based, most people don't need to pronounce it, they just follow a link or search for the name. If we talk to them, they'll hear us say it when answering the phone, but we aren't too concerned with how people pronounce it. After five years of using this name, most people get it close enough.
Learndot looks to be an overall better name than Matygo.
So, eventually, getting http://learn.dot might be possible...
I've told clients similar things before. You need to be able to tell someone your website name and be able to have them find it very easily. Unless you're one of the only ones in your space and people will find your site searching for key terms, it's very important that your site is easy to find, pronounce and spell.
With all that said, I'm curious as to why you went with a logo that, to me, is hard to read? Before I even got to the body of your post, I was looking at the background on the header image and struggled with:
Leai ndot...
Why did I have problems with this? The dot is often used as a syllable spacer when you are looking at pronunciation guides. For example: mis·take.
I don't know if you considered this but I thought I'd mention it because I can't be the only one. It seemed appropriate to mention since having a logo that is easy to read and understand should go along with having a name that is easy to pronounce and understand.
This was a tough call. We thought it was a clever design that tied together the name mark and the logo. In the post I mentioned I printed it out and got people on the street to read it – that was specifically because some people found the 'r' hard to read!
If it turns out to be an issue for a lot of people, we'll revisit.
Maybe connect the post and dot with a bar, or remove some of the spacing. Make the "o" a solid dot instead?
Twitter handle was registered, but had never tweeted and looked abandoned. I contacted a friend who works at Twitter and after a bit of investigation was able to get @learndot as well
Is this something that's easy to do? Can it be done if you don't know anyone inside Twitter? I had to settle for something like @myappnameapp instead of @myappname because the username was already taken but had never been used. I'd be interested to learn what are the Twitter policies regarding this.
In my case I had a stronger claim - the company I was with (@ShirlawsUK) had registered the handle originally, but handed it over to an ex-staffer who had changed the password, never used it, and left several years prior (so email mailbox was long dead). Took about 48 hours from memory, and the account was ours again.
can someone on this forum perhaps help me? contact me at karen.denny@quirk.biz
thanks karen
* Have the .com
* Be able to pronounce it and the url without confusion.
Got those two things? Great, now get back to shipping your product. Seriously, names are irrelevant and unless you have mega cash you're not going to get a 10x name (eg: path.com) so just make sure you're not terrible.
Here is a better name for learndot: learnduck.com you're welcome.
Seriously, I'm not sure why everyone in this thread is so convinced that their name or name-choosing process is somehow genius or better than that of the OP. Obviously the OP knows that choosing a name is tough and you're never going to get the perfect name. It's all about compromising in the right places to get a name, a domain, a social presence, and so forth.
Personally, I found the story educational and a close parallel to my own difficulties with choosing names. I'm especially grateful for the discussion of buying the domain name. I'd like to hear the actual dollar value, but I can understand why that wasn't mentioned. At least it's clear that the price moved by $1000's which gives some frame of reference instead of us just guessing whether it was $100 or $100,000.
Sam Stokes (Rapportive co-founder) called it his "favourite post on naming things". :)
Ooh, and Sam's coworker called it "absolutely brilliant". I might be reaching now.
EVOC: green, especially with the cute tagline, "learning, period"
BREV: green or yellow; slightly shorter than wikipedia
GREP: green; perfectly greppable
GOOG: green; perfectly googlable
PRON: green; perfectly pronounceable
SPEL: yellow or red, given the confusion with "learn dot dot com"
VERB: yellow; the verbification isn't obvious but probably verbable
So all in all I think it's a good name!
I spoke to a branding/marketing guy the other day that had a very interesting philosophy behind product and company names. His idea was that your name should make _no_ sense until you explain it to someone.
If you name your company "Stan's Golf Lessons" then you fit into the crowd. You don't stand out. Your customer know's exactly what you do based on your name and they don't dig for more information. They also don't remember you in specific when they want golf lessons. Instead, name your company "Perfect Lies". This gets peoples attention. They have no clue what you do, but it piques their interest. They ask what it means. You tell them you give golf lessons, and suddenly the name Perfect Lies makes more sense (for non-golfers, 'lie' means where your ball sits on the course). They remember you.
Sometimes it's the hardest part of the rebranding.
edit: a little proof; yumbud.com
This tendency leads me to take the opposite strategy: take a word that has no special meaning (checking first that it has no bad connotations, of course), that sounds rather good and it's easy to spell. I also often wonder if taking a name that has a deep relation with your current targets won't hurt you whenever you need to pivot.
I also liked the discussion that developed on another thread about a month ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4684599
If you had done this originally, this blog post would never have been written, but you would have had a superior name to learndotdotcom 8+ months ago.
I know it may look bad to change your name again, but thinking long term, this confusion around this name is going to impact your organisation in ways that you can't even measure so if it is at all an option at this case I would strongly recommend pursuing an alternate path.
Sometimes its cheaper to do things the expensive way.
Nice blog mate, but seriously think you're losing track of time here. Facebook (thefacebook), Twitter (twttr), Google (a typo of Googol) are all products that didn't take naming too seriously when they started. Don't you think spending 9 months on a rebranding campaign for a startup that was set up just 3 years ago is a little rash?
Personally, loved the earlier Matygo logo.... the 2 word bubbles intersecting told me everything I needed to know about the company. And the business card was sharp too.
Hope this all works out for you guys! :)
I'm a big fan of this technique in many aspects of my work. Whether it be a programming problem or needing to work through a creative idea, if I'm not 100% confident in a solution I step away from the problem for a day or two and usually have a lot more insight when I come back to it.
BTW, glad to see you guys moving forward; I check your blog once in a while and haven't seen much lately. Good luck!
Why not choose a simple name with a different TLD? Basecamp has been basecamphq all these years. Also, read Evan Williams' thoughts on this: http://evhead.com/2011/06/five-reasons-domains-are-less-impo...
Takes the whole, "I like this name" arguments out of the mix.
how much time / money did it cost you to register your trademark? I've heard from various sources that the time can be from 1 mth to 6 mth, and money from $300 to $2000, so just wanted to check with the person who had first-hand experience.
Also, can you recommend a lawyer for this kind of stuff.
thank you
We're in Vancouver and our lawyers are Clark Wilson. I'm happy but this is my first time registering a trademark, so I don't have a frame of reference.
email paul at learndot.com if you have other questions. :)
So you are Canadians, nice to see the start-up land diversifying a bit. I was in Toronto 14 years ago, loved Canada. Good luck with re-branding! :-)
Your "three tests of a name" don't mention "does someone else own that name, or something similar, and are they likely to sue?" That could be important for some people.
I'm really relieved that your name is 'learndot', and not 'learn.'.
"how to name your compnay"
nothx
