On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 12:19:24 AM UTC-8, Eric Shulman wrote: > > > There are many applications and websites that have silly names (Google, > Twitter, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Twitch) or are portmanteaus composed of word > fragments or combinations (GMail, Instagram, Wikipedia, Pinterest, > WordPress) or deliberate misspellings (Reddit="read it", Imgur="imager"). > Some names are completely arbitrary and have nothing at all to do with the > site purpose (Amazon, eBay, Tumblr, Bing). There's even names that have > unfortunate use of unsavory or perjorative terms (GitHub - > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(slang)) or use words that are the > opposite of their intended purpose (Discord="to disagree or lack harmony" > vs Discourse="written or spoken communication or debate") > > Well, DuckDuckGo isn't exactly taking off, even though they do advertise. Yahoo is in decline, has financial problems and just ended their groups. "Google" was a reference to a mathematical concept, so already had an "in" in the nerd crowd. Also, they had an advantage that their competition at the time was "Yahoo", which at the time also had an advertising budget (anyone else hear the radio adverts?)
The big point is that none of the competing names are *diminutives*. Yes, you can have a name that's farcical, arbitrary, or pejorative. But you *can not, must not, have a name that is a diminutive* or suggests childishness and expect it to self-evangelize. TW has no advertising budget, so word-of-mouth is the only way it will spread. But people don't feel comfortable saying "Tiddly Wiki" out loud in meetings in front of adults. This severely limits evangelization, and it limits uptake among people today who are exposed to dozens of competing products every day. People make choices every day based on subtle cues without even realizing it. This is why no one calls their child "Rover" and people with names like "Rudolph" just use their initials. Names are important, and aspirational. And absent advertising, they can make or break widespread acceptance among the netizens of the world. > I do not believe that changing the name of TiddlyWiki will have any > meaningful effect on the rate of adoption. There is a crowd of > similarly-named "wiki" systems ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software) and if anything, the > distinctive name makes it more memorable. > > What might help (but perhaps only a little) is a clear and consistent > explanation of the name, followed by a summary "showcase" of some of the > interesting kinds of things that illustrates the power and flexibility of > what you can actually *DO* with TiddlyWiki. After all, once you get past > the name, its what people want to do that determines whether or not they > stick with TiddlyWiki. > > Here's my explanation for the name "TiddlyWiki": > http://tiddlytools.com/InsideTW/#WhatsInAName > > -e > > ref: > https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/top-100-websites-ranking.html > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/842c6bce-d1a1-4deb-b53b-4a7437ca1326%40googlegroups.com.
