Comments on: I'll Give You $50 for a Worse Brand Name Than Knol

By: Nika

Nika — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:21:30 +0000

AcipHex- When you pronounce it, it sounds like “ass effects” http://www.aciphex.com/
When my hubs and I heard this commercial, we both started laughing uncontrollably. Who on earth could have thought of such a terrible name???

By: ottojschlosser

ottojschlosser — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:08:27 +0000

“Rejaw” – some kind of new blogging service. It sounds really painful… “Sorry, but it looks like we’ll have to rejaw.”

By: Fran

Fran — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:30:14 +0000

1) Nollidge – in the tradition of Google, a misspelled version of “googol.” Pronoucable and dumb.

2) Breyn – same as above

By: TheNameInspector

TheNameInspector — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:32:33 +0000

Thetus

By: Frito

Frito — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:11:11 +0000

Orkut… but someone already said that. Stickam? Xanga?

By: susanbdot

susanbdot — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:51:05 +0000

For me, it has to be:

Me.com

That’s the most dreadful name I can imagine, and it’s been forced on me… almost. At least I can remain myself@mac.com, instead of having to accept myself@me.com.

But… Me.com… It makes me think of certain online services of years ago. Or even some still extant web gateways. Me, Me, Meeeee! Look at MY stuff. (Some of which remains surprisingly unconfigurable by ME. Hmmph)

It makes me feel as if I should be about 10 years old.

Uck.

By: Zman

Zman — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:47:16 +0000

Vaio

wtf.

By: Conga

Conga — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:41:34 +0000

GOOL (pronounce CUIL)

By: tsmyther

tsmyther — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:12:33 +0000

Staying with the “knowledge” theme, here’s one:

nozit

For extra points, you could prepend it with a silent “k”, but that would prevent it getting mistaken as an acne medication company.

While this is pronouncable (knows it), those words suffer the same fate of any elided sibilent – it can be on either word or on both.

ice cream = I scream
it’s not = it’s snot
Bo knows = Bono’s

But nozit.com could take off like the “Bo Knows” commercials, so it could actually be a great brand name. Maybe I need to take a trip to godaddy….

By: djparis

djparis — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:31:29 +0000

Great post! I take it you meant a brand that had actually launched.

One of my “favorites” was kozmo.com, one of those get-anything-in-an-hour urban delivery sites back in the late 90s.

You could never just say it when you recommended it to friends; you ALWAYS had to spell it afterwards. It was so annoying.

And they didn’t bother checking who owned cosmo.com, or kozmo.com or cozmo.com.

Ah, the bad ol’ days.