Ever think about where the names: Bing, Ning, Yahoo, Flickr, Koornk, Identi.ca came from? What were their founder’s thinking to give these social media sites such obscure names?
My mother sent me an article that appeared in the July 26th issue of the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. The title of the article, “What’s in a Name?” was written by Wailin Wong. The reporter takes seven different social media sites and explains what it is, what they are used for and where they got their names.
Here’s a brief synopsis:
Bing, the latest search engine from Microsoft. (BTW, I really enjoy this one better then Google because of the interesting and unique photographs that appear on the site.) Microsoft is hoping that the word “Bing” will be as catchy as it’s competitor’s name — Google. Bing? Google? Which one would you go to if they were both marketed the same way and were both as popular?
Flickr, the photosharing web site owned by Yahoo. The word flickr is associated with pleasant things like candles and therefore, the co-founders decided to use it.
Ning, an online community creator, was co-founded by Gina Bianchini. Ning is short and sweet, Bianchini says, and it also means peace in Chinese. (I guess you’re at peace in your community?)
Yahoo, the internet service provider, was co-founded by David Filo and Jerry Yang. The two liked the definition of yahoo: “rude, unsophisticated and uncouth.” It is also an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”
And now a little research to find out what some of these other names mean and why they were chosen! Any thoughts?
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- Where do those weird Web names come from? (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
