On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 7:16:34 AM UTC-8, Mark S. wrote: > > Well, DuckDuckGo isn't exactly taking off, even though they do > advertise. >
According to the June 2019 stats from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/top-100-websites-ranking.html, DuckDuckGo has been "experiencing brisk growth in recent years"... and shows a 10-fold increase from 3M daily searches in 2014 to 30M daily searches in 2019.... and, "DuckDuckGo" sounds like a reference to a child's game, "Duck Duck Goose" Yahoo is in decline, has financial problems and just ended their groups. > As of June 2019, Yahoo is the 7th most visited site on the list, just behind Twitter (6th), and ahead of PornHub (ewww!) and Instagram (9th). While they are no longer the *top* search engine of choice, they are still quite relevant and have a persistence over the long haul that speaks to their *actual* stability, despite any perceptions to the contrary. > "Google" was a reference to a mathematical concept, so already had an "in" > in the nerd crowd. > "Google" is a sound a baby makes. "Googol" is the math term. For actual math nerds, this is a non-trivial distinction. > 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?) > Admittedly, Yahoo *seems* to be past its prime; however, as noted above, it is still doing quite well in the rankings (7th)... well ahead of Amazon (14), NetFlix (17), WhatsApp (19), Reddit (21), and eBay (28)... all of which have more *buzz* but less *traffic*. > 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. > Contrary to your assertion, "DuckDuckGo" and "Google" are both childish names... and BIG doesn't not mean BETTER... *micro*soft is a diminutive name, and they have done quite well. 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. > Why do you feel that is so? Adults in meetings... REAL adults... don't make business decisions based on "feelings" about the name of a product. They evaluate the cost/benefit relationship to their business objectives, and adopt whatever tech makes sense to meet their goals. Also, my sense is that, for most businesses, use of TiddlyWiki is targeted for *internal* activities (e.g., status reports, planning documents, HR manuals, etc), rather than customer-facing presentations (except perhaps for online end-user reference manuals, installation/troubleshooting guides, etc.), so the name of the product is not really that relevant to the decision to use it. This severely limits evangelization, and > it limits uptake among people today who are exposed to dozens of > competing products every day. > The shear number of sites and products with "techno-babble" names demands that people making decisions will tend to look for the *functionality* that suits their purposes, regardless of the name of the product. 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. > Rudolph is still a widely used name (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_(name)) and there are *many* famous people who go by "Rudy" -- the *diminutive* form of Rudolph (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy) Names are important, and aspirational. And absent advertising, they can > make or break widespread acceptance among the netizens of the world. > I think that age has a great deal to do with how much sway a name has among "netizens". The younger crowd (teens and 20-somethings) are very fickle and prone to the short-term social influence of their contemporaries. If you choose a name that appeals to the younger crowd, you might get a quick boost in popularity, but you are just as likely to find yourself "left in the lurch" when the trend of the moment moves on to the next big thing. On the other hand, older "netizens" (especially those who run businesses) tend towards more in-depth considerations. They recognize that, in the long-run, the *name* of an application is NOT even remotely as important as the *functionality* and *reliability* of a product. TiddlyWiki's slow but steady growth and persistence over the past 15 years demonstrates that it has the utility and stability that appeals to *decision makers* rather than *influencers*. Please note that I am not averse to *considering* other names for TiddlyWiki. It's just that I don't think a name change will have any significant *positive* effect on how well TiddlyWiki is accepted, and there are more important issues (e.g., file saving, hosting, security, etc.) that will have a much greater impact on growth and acceptance. Conversely, changing the name can have a major *negative* effect, discarding the accumulated good-will and confidence that has been building for many years, by sending a signal that the developers of a product are more interested in style over substance. Keep the name... improve the functionality. -e > -- 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/cee83a3a-2006-46a0-8633-25ab736435db%40googlegroups.com.
