Marketing 101- Choosing A Name for Your Company

Marketing 101: Choosing A Name for Your Company

Last updated: 7/16/2002; 7:16:57 PM

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Marketing 101: Choosing A Name for Your Company

I just ran through an IM session with an online / offline friend, Michael Bernstein and I thought it was interesting enough to make an article out of. Here's how it actually started:

ZopeMaven: Hey there!
fuzzygroup: Hey Mike
ZopeMaven: got some time?
fuzzygroup: Sure
ZopeMaven: I need to settle on a company name for myself.
fuzzygroup: Ok
fuzzygroup: "DemiGodsOfZope" ?
ZopeMaven: over the past few years, I've registered a few domain names that I thought might one day be appropriate.
fuzzygroup: ok

ZopeMaven: Hey there!
fuzzygroup: Hey Mike
ZopeMaven: got some time?
fuzzygroup: Sure
ZopeMaven: I need to settle on a company name for myself.
fuzzygroup: Ok
fuzzygroup: "DemiGodsOfZope" ?
ZopeMaven: over the past few years, I've registered a few domain names that I thought might one day be appropriate.
fuzzygroup: ok
ZopeMaven: Hang On I'm going to paste a list in.
fuzzygroup: ok
ZopeMaven:     AGILEBRAND.COM
    AGILEBRANDING.COM
    AGILEBRANDS.COM
    AGILEMEDIUM.COM
    AGILESTUDIO.COM
    ARCHISTRUCT.COM
    CRYPTOSOME.COM
    EMORPHEON.COM
    NERDWORLDORDER.COM
    NERDWORLDORDER.NET
    NERDWORLDORDER.ORG
    NEXANA.COM
    NOVONIS.COM
    PANHEDRON.COM
    SENSEMAKERS.COM
    SENSEMAKERS.NET
    SENSEMAKERS.ORG
fuzzygroup: ok.
fuzzygroup: What will your company be doing
ZopeMaven: basically, I need to select one as a DBA (like you have 'Fuzzy Group').
fuzzygroup: Yes – but how do you plany to make 
ZopeMaven: I'm doing consulting, I'd like to pursue a focus on weblogs and KM.
fuzzygroup: PANHEDRON.COM
fuzzygroup: or nexana.com
ZopeMaven: And, of course I've got a fair amount of Zope expertise.
fuzzygroup: the reason I picked those 2 was that both are pretty phonetic
fuzzygroup: and ambiguous
fuzzygroup: also "pan" means all
fuzzygroup: and "nexana" has a relationship to nexus
ZopeMaven: yeah pnhedron == all sides
fuzzygroup: Yup
ZopeMaven: Ok.
fuzzygroup: A lot of times as a consultnat you network at conferences, cocktail hours, etc. So something phonetic is really good, iMHO.
ZopeMaven: I eliminated a few out of the list I pasted BTW, such as PROPELLERBEANIES.COM :-)
fuzzygroup: lol
fuzzygroup: SenseMakers is also good
fuzzygroup: didn't see that one 1st time.
ZopeMaven: So how would you order your top picks from this list?
fuzzygroup: SenseMakers (if you can also get sensemaker) Panhedron Nexana
fuzzygroup: The order on the last two is flip a coin though
ZopeMaven: sensemaker was taken at the time I regitered these… let me check now…
fuzzygroup: ok. www.000domains.com is $13 only and rocks
ZopeMaven: it's taken.
fuzzygroup: Then do the last 2 or someone will use sensemaker.com instead
fuzzygroup: guaranteed!!!
ZopeMaven: Those would have been my top picks too, although I would have included novonis as well.
fuzzygroup: felt like a drug company to me
ZopeMaven: heh.
fuzzygroup: well it did!
ZopeMaven: don't get your panties in a bunch… :-) I wasn't arguing with you.
fuzzygroup: oh i know
fuzzygroup: i was teasing you too
ZopeMaven: Ok, if sensemakers is off the table, then I think I'll be going with panhedron.
fuzzygroup: Sounds good.
fuzzygroup: Hey! Here's an idea. Can I convert this transcript to a Marketing 101: Picking a Name for Your Business ?
ZopeMaven: Sure.
fuzzygroup: cool. Off to the races I will charge – after I write some more code once the pizza arrives that is
ZopeMaven: do you want to keep the references to the actual names, or do you want to change them?
fuzzygroup: Oh no. Keep 'em.
ZopeMaven: Other names I dropped from the list I pasted are webmaven.org and webonomicon.com
fuzzygroup: that's what makes it interesting.
fuzzygroup: Cool.
fuzzygroup: It should get you some attention perhaps as well.
ZopeMaven: Sure.
fuzzygroup: Can you give me 2 sentences as to what specifically you want to charge for (i.e. some more detail) ?
ZopeMaven: I'll have to design a logo for the site and the cards.
ZopeMaven: mm.
fuzzygroup: How about this then
ZopeMaven: Michael Bernstein
—————–
Michael Bernstein is an information architect who has been a member of
the Zope development community since early 1999, wrote the first
community-contributed "How-To" for Zope in February of that year, and is
the creator and editor of the Open Source category in the Open Directory
Project. More recently, Michael co-authored the 'Zope Bible' published
by Hungry Minds in April of this year.

Currently residing in Las Vegas, he has has built and managed various
Content Management Systems and Intranets using Zope. He is now focusing
on bottom-up knowledge management solutions. His interests include
Science Fiction Fandom, Open Source, and other self-organizing emergent
phenomena.
fuzzygroup: Cool.
fuzzygroup: Perfect
ZopeMaven: Ooops.
ZopeMaven: Just a second.
ZopeMaven: I forgot a few more, but the probably aren't relevant:
fuzzygroup: nprb. i'm starting to write now so I'm going to focus in since I have a few minutes.
ZopeMaven: OPENBLUEPRINT.COM (.NET, .ORG)
SOURCEFOUNDRY.COM (.NET, .ORG)

ZopeMaven: Ok, that was it.
fuzzygroup: great
ZopeMaven: I assume you'll be linking to the selected name (panhedron.com) from your article?
fuzzygroup: Oh yes
fuzzygroup: I always try to lend a hand when I can