I've noticed today two major screw ups by companies that chose to use names that are already very well established as existing applications or technology.
Kismet, as most technology and network enthusiasts know, is a well established and highly popular Network analysis tool. Yet a company decided to make an iOS application called Kismet, which deals with the other kind of networking. What's worse, people have been trying to get Kismet on iOS for a while, and other apps are appearing as "Kismet like" for iOS. Now that's shrouded by this false app, which isn't at all what most people are going to want when they search for Kismet.
What do you see when you Google for Kismet? Certainly not the Social networking tool.
Google
Google recently announced the new Google Play; nothing really revolutionary, but essentially bringing it up to par with iTunes. This is actually a pretty big and important step for Google. They updated their Privacy Policies to allow them to share your user information between their own apps, and now they're unifying their purchase system to be all in one. Unfortunately, they chose a very poor name for their former Google Books application, which is now called "Play Books".
There's two things wrong with this name: First, it doesn't at all say Google anymore. Ok the market center is now called Google Play, but you can still call the app Google Books. Secondly, There already is a thing called a Play Book. Yes, it's from BlackBerry, and now people are going to associate that app with a failing company that's losing marketshare like a leaky faucet.
What do you get for a Google search for Play Books? Even though BlackBerry may be on the downward spiral, they still show up as the top results, not Google's app.
For a company like Google, you'd think they'd have searched on that name first.
Kismet
Kismet, as most technology and network enthusiasts know, is a well established and highly popular Network analysis tool. Yet a company decided to make an iOS application called Kismet, which deals with the other kind of networking. What's worse, people have been trying to get Kismet on iOS for a while, and other apps are appearing as "Kismet like" for iOS. Now that's shrouded by this false app, which isn't at all what most people are going to want when they search for Kismet.
What do you see when you Google for Kismet? Certainly not the Social networking tool.
Google recently announced the new Google Play; nothing really revolutionary, but essentially bringing it up to par with iTunes. This is actually a pretty big and important step for Google. They updated their Privacy Policies to allow them to share your user information between their own apps, and now they're unifying their purchase system to be all in one. Unfortunately, they chose a very poor name for their former Google Books application, which is now called "Play Books".
There's two things wrong with this name: First, it doesn't at all say Google anymore. Ok the market center is now called Google Play, but you can still call the app Google Books. Secondly, There already is a thing called a Play Book. Yes, it's from BlackBerry, and now people are going to associate that app with a failing company that's losing marketshare like a leaky faucet.
What do you get for a Google search for Play Books? Even though BlackBerry may be on the downward spiral, they still show up as the top results, not Google's app.
For a company like Google, you'd think they'd have searched on that name first.
Please Google it first
If it's already something well established, pick a different name. Stop naming things that can be confused with other products or companies; and please, stop adding "get" to the front of your domain name because someone already owns the original.
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