It’s the weekend, so time for a more satirical look at the tech world. There is a growing outbreak in the technology world around capitalization. It is now passe for a firm to have just one capitalized letter in its name. Names are being created by combining words and each of the original words get to enjoy capitalization. Looking at the Red Herring 100 finalist list this year, it was a downright epidemic: YouTube, BitTorrent, ContextWeb, ClearFuels, EqualLogic, FatLens, FeedBurner, FilmLoop, JotSpot, HelioVolt,…. I am certain that advertising friends can explain the power of this as well as historically how we got here.
Some companies are getting sneaky and starting with a lower case letter and throwing in the capital letter when you don’t expect it. Thanks to Apple, any name starting with an "i" will do this…iRise, iUpload, iCapitalize (okay, I threw in the last one myself). A couple of companies have taken the model to other parts of the alphabet such as rPath and nTAG. I don’t know of any firms brave enough to capitalize just the last letter.
The last permutation is the bold strategy of using all capitals name. No, these are not your garden variety Acronyms like CIA, FBI or EPA. These are pioneers in the all out technology wars. All caps connote power and presence. SNOCAP, Shawn Fanning’s Digital Music Registry, is an example. I would imagine if your potential partner/enemy is the RIAA (Recording Industry Associaton of America…the music police), you have to trump their acronym with an uber-cap strategy. Having lost his first battle to the RIAA using only one Capital letter (Napster), Shawn obviously did not want to make the mistake again.
The true innovator here are biotech firms like our portfolio company, CyThera. Not to let their IT brethren get the better of them, life science firms are fighting back. One creative use of the capital strategy is another of our firms, RenaMed. It is a renal therapy firm originally called Nephros. However, issues & confusion with the publicly traded Nephros forced a name change. Without the capitalize "M", it would read Renamed (which is exactly what they were doing). Very slick!
I don’t know where all of this innovative naming goes next, but I look forward to seeing new and creative uses of our alphabet.
I don’t’ think you need to talk to your advertising friends – it’s your lawyer friends. My understanding is that mashing two words together is an easy way to come up with a legally sound trade mark. Feed Burner is apparently tougher for the lawers to defend than FeedBurner, and FeedBurner is easier to read than Feedburner.
Now the vowel abuse is just weird. It used to be e-blank. Then i-blank. what’s next, u-blank? a-blank?
As a tie to your recent board governance posts, you could have added SarbOx to the list.
I didn’t think about the legal aspect of it. Very interesting but makes sense. I think there is also a tendency to do so because of URL’s where you already have the words of the name mashed together. It is a small step from there to the formal name being mashed together. Once you have sipped from the Capitalization coolaid, you push to get more and more creative.
—–
PING:
TITLE: Buy phentermine order cheap online.
URL: http://my.mashable.com/phen4sale
IP: 91.186.21.78
BLOG NAME: Buy phentermine online.
DATE: 04/06/2008 06:08:06 AM
Buy cheap online phentermine. Buy phentermine online. Buy phentermine online ch. Phentermine buy phentermine online phentermine. Pillinc buy phentermine adipex meridia online. Buy online phentermine california. Drug phentermine gt buy phentermine online.