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Gaboogie & the truth about Web 2.0 names

Gaboogie sounds like a great service. Web centric conference call organizing, mobile features, etc. I’d love to recommend its use here in my blue chip day job world.

Unfortunately, many of my peers and superiors are even further out-of-the-valley than I am, and I just can’t see the service being taken seriously with a name like “Gaboogie.” Cute names do not convey enterprise-strength credibility, reliability, etc. to a group that deals with IBM, EDS, Microsoft, and Sun on a daily basis.

Call it ridiculous or superficial if you want, but names communicate. Given that the conference calling target market is principally businesses, why not have a brand that speaks to them? Gaboogie sounds like something for kids. In the case of Yuuguu, which suffers from a similar naming problem, I suggested a brand split - a professional version with a professional sounding name, and a tweens version with the cute/funky name. Same thing could apply to Gaboogie - split it in two with proper branding around each, and I bet you’ll get better adoption of each. The marginal cost of creating a second branded version of your creation is (generally) extremely low as well, especially when taken relative to the potential benefits.

This discussion also calls into question the whole concept of market segmentation. I know that in the era of $12,000 throw-it-at-the-wall and see-what-sticks projects “segmentation” isn’t really cool - but its useful. Even if you’re doing a Kawasaki-esque “no business plan” launch, at least take the time to decide who you want your target demographic to be, and let that knowledge inform your design & brand decisions - and avoid the perceived disconnect between brand and product that Gaboogie has.

branding, communications, gaboogie, kawasaki, marketing, names, segmentation, strategy yuuguu

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Mark Evans: Communications 101 - some further thoughts on email

Mark Evans, Canadian B5 blogger, writes a good post on quality of communications in our hyper-connected present. I won’t re-iterate the whole thing, but in quick summary his position is that physical meetings and phone calls hold value above and beyond the email paradigm that many have come to accept as the default form of communication.

I’m one of those. I love email, for two reasons that Mark didn’t mention:

1. Contiguous conversations discontinuously: Email let’s me have a conversation when I and the other participants want to have it. I can respond to emails when it suits me, prioritizing tasks independent of the immediacy of the medium in which they reside. The way workflow works for me, this is paramount: I’m a “burst” working, functioning best in roughly 40 minute blocks of hyper-productivity. Catch me in the middle of such a block and I’ll be surly and distracted (ask my wife - sorry!). Catch me outside, and I’m cheerful, helpful, etc.
2. Paper trail: For indexing and ass-covering, email is awesome. In my blogging, I love communicating by email because it gives me a searchable index of facts that I’ve compiled in email conversations which would otherwise be scrawled in one of my frequently lost notebooks. In my day job, I love the paper trail: it keeps everyone accountable and transparent.

So - call me a ogre-ish jerk if you will, but I love email and online communications in general.

communications, email, markevans phone

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