Ask HN: Why do the names of so many products give no information on what it is?

2 pointsbfish51013y ago4 comments

Dropbox makes me think of storage. iPhone is straight to the point as well as Evernote. Of every application you know with a large user base can you tell what the product does by it's name?

So why does it seem that so many companies give up such a valuable piece information into what their product does for a shorter domain name? To sound unique? If there is no connection between the name and the product how likely am I to remember the name when I try to talk about it?

4 comments

claudius13y ago

It might be worth pointing out that this is not a recent development. For example, take the names of text editors:

- Obvious: Word, Notes, Writer, ed, Notepad etc.

- Less obvious: vi, vim, Emacs, nano/pico

Or car brands:

- ‘Obvious’: General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen

- Less Obvious: Mercedes, Ford, Audi

So this is definitely not a recent phenomenon and I hence doubt that you could link it to the length of domain names.

eterm13y ago

When it comes to retail, I have a self-rule about never buying from any retailer whose name makes it obvious what they sell.

"amazon", "ebay", "Tesco" don't make it obvious.

"PC world", "Phones4u", "Lawyers4u", "buycheapstuffonline" make it obvious.

I think a unique name helps build a brand over a descriptive name which to me often sounds cheap.

bediger400013y ago

I don't know for certain, but I get the sense that "intellectual property" concerns play into naming pretty heavily these days. That is, folks don't want to hassle with trademark dust-ups, so they use semi-random nonsense names to avoid even appearing to infringe.

meerita13y ago

Twitter? Facebook? those aren't so obvious to me.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse