6 ms·

Or they could just change their name to something people would take seriously. Just a thought.

by mattmaroon 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
roc 17y ago
... because the search engine market has so long been dominated by serious-sounding firms?
- gnoupi 17y ago
  The search engine market started before all the "serious people" started coming to the Internet, I think. I think it is harder nowadays to make a fame with a name like this.
  - NathanKP 17y ago
    The internet hasn't become any more serious recently. People are still using it for non-serious things (lolcats, 4chan, Reddit, etc) so a non-serious search engine can still attract people, I think.
  - PostOnce 17y ago
    Jerry Yang calls himself the "Chief Yahoo", and that is about as unserious as it gets. Windows Live Search changed its name to something less serious to be more appealing to the public. I mean, really, Bing? How serious is that? Ask.com is about the most sensibly-named search engine. I mean, what do you do with a search engine? You ask it things. That hasn't really helped them corner the market, exactly. I am ranting. I should go to bed.
- Legion 17y ago
  My first reaction was to agree with your point. But I wonder if there are varying levels of non-seriousness. Names like Google and Yahoo definitely aren't serious, but they also have a sort of generic quality. Not in a bad sense, I just mean they don't evoke a specific silly image in my head - at least not by themselves (when I think Yahoo, I see a big purple !, but that's by marketing design). Duck Duck Go, though, doesn't have that same nebulous quality. There's something more concrete there, and more specific imagery that comes to mind. And I think that's why someone might react that way to the name and not to the names Google or Yahoo or Bing. It's less vague, and decidedly more Saturday morning cartoon. Is that bad? I don't know, it doesn't necessarily bother me. But I understand why some people view it differently than the search engine names already out there.
  - mattmaroon 17y ago
    That's my exact thought. Google and Yahoo! come off as genuinely irreverent and fun (but, importantly, not childish). It's like something you'd expect a couple 20-something hackers to name their product. Duck Duck Go comes off as the 50 yr old guy who yells "'Fo Shizzle!" and holds his hand out for a fist bump. It's something you'd expect from an older guy trying to pretend to be a 20something hacker. It thus comes off as insincere.
    - epi0Bauqu 17y ago
      Empirically, people seem to love or hate the name, i.e. it generates an emotional response. When I talk to "normals" this love/hate ratio is very high. I understand though that you've taken issue with the name right from the beginning. This is not the first time you've shared this viewpoint :)
      - mattmaroon 17y ago
        Ha, yeah wouldn't surprise me. I don't remember it but definitely believe you. I think what New Coke proved though is that haters have an unduly large influence. New Coke kicked both original Coke and Pepsi's asses in blind taste tests. It's possibly bad to have something that has a love to hate ratio, even if a large one, rather than something people respect but don't care much about one way or the other.
    - lanstein 17y ago
      I guess they can always change it to DDG down the road. Has a nice, more serious ring to it.
      - mzl 17y ago
        Doesn't really roll off the tongue. How about dudugo :) Seems to be taken though.
  - MikeCapone 17y ago
    I think you nailed it. There's a dichotomy between "silly non-specific" and "silly specific".
iamwil 17y ago
Google was a silly name for a while, and what do we think of it now? Here, I'll invoke "Tara" "The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act." - Tara Ploughman
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  Well, "Google" rolls off the tongue much easier than "Duck Duck Go". "Duck Duck Go" is also hard to "verb", as it were. I don't have a problem with the mentioned silliness of the name, I just think it's too long and hard to say/write.
  - epi0Bauqu 17y ago
    Duck it! Working on shorter domain names...we have dukgo, though that isn't that memorable. I hope to have something soon though.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - axod 17y ago
      I'd say get something that you can easily say, spell, and use as a verb. bloip gibbit erdle jopple etc etc But rebranding does seem a big job to me. It's amazingly motivating when you start seeing your startups name appearing as a verb on twitter searches :)
      - mattmaroon 17y ago
        Rebranding is not too difficult if you don't get much traffic from organic search. It's a simple redirect and a notice on the page. It's also not too difficult when you're small but gets more costly as time goes on. If DDG succeeds, the customer base it has now will be something like .00001% of it's users.
    - anonjon 17y ago
      duckify! (?)
icey 17y ago
I think it's a matter of taste. A few people I've told about duckduckgo have mentioned it "sounded like a search engine's name" after I said that I thought the name wasn't that great.
mburney 17y ago
Actually the only reason I started using duck duck go is because the name sounds cool.
Hoff 17y ago
Pick some topic areas that are popular with some subset of the population. There are various groups that would welcome having certain search terms dropped from the indices and others that they favor weighted more highly, for instance. There are any number of ways to go to cater to specific search audiences. Start up multiple parallel DDG analogs of Google's Blackle <http://www.blackle.com&#62 http://www.blackle.com> site, for instance. For the business folks, call it PinstripeSearch or PrivateSearch or something suitable for the target audience. Graft a different presentation with conservative fonts and typography and tweak the search index ratings for the audience, and off you go. There are any number of audiences for specific searches. Yeah, the indexes get huge. But then you also get to cater to and advertise to specific audiences.
arethuza 17y ago
Well, for what it is worth, I rather like the name. Memorable, easy to spell and with the right amount of humor.
tomkinstinch 17y ago
Regardless of any meaning associated with it or how serious it sounds, "DuckDuckGo" takes a while to type...
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  He has dukgo.com as a short redirect.
  - tomkinstinch 16y ago
    Great, thanks for the tip!
po 17y ago
When I saw the title of this HN post "Let me Duck Duck Go that for you" and clicked on it, I was expecting a blog posting about how why DDG doesn't have an easy enough name to ever catch on. I actually like the sillyness of the name but I'm not that fond of the name/logo of Duck Duck Go. I think it reminds me too much of Aflac.
Keyframe 17y ago
duckhunt is already taken!

Or they could just change their name to something people would take seriously. Just a thought.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

roc 17y ago

... because the search engine market has so long been dominated by serious-sounding firms?

gnoupi 17y ago
The search engine market started before all the "serious people" started coming to the Internet, I think. I think it is harder nowadays to make a fame with a name like this.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  The internet hasn't become any more serious recently. People are still using it for non-serious things (lolcats, 4chan, Reddit, etc) so a non-serious search engine can still attract people, I think.
- PostOnce 17y ago
  Jerry Yang calls himself the "Chief Yahoo", and that is about as unserious as it gets. Windows Live Search changed its name to something less serious to be more appealing to the public. I mean, really, Bing? How serious is that? Ask.com is about the most sensibly-named search engine. I mean, what do you do with a search engine? You ask it things. That hasn't really helped them corner the market, exactly. I am ranting. I should go to bed.
Legion 17y ago
My first reaction was to agree with your point. But I wonder if there are varying levels of non-seriousness. Names like Google and Yahoo definitely aren't serious, but they also have a sort of generic quality. Not in a bad sense, I just mean they don't evoke a specific silly image in my head - at least not by themselves (when I think Yahoo, I see a big purple !, but that's by marketing design). Duck Duck Go, though, doesn't have that same nebulous quality. There's something more concrete there, and more specific imagery that comes to mind. And I think that's why someone might react that way to the name and not to the names Google or Yahoo or Bing. It's less vague, and decidedly more Saturday morning cartoon. Is that bad? I don't know, it doesn't necessarily bother me. But I understand why some people view it differently than the search engine names already out there.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  That's my exact thought. Google and Yahoo! come off as genuinely irreverent and fun (but, importantly, not childish). It's like something you'd expect a couple 20-something hackers to name their product. Duck Duck Go comes off as the 50 yr old guy who yells "'Fo Shizzle!" and holds his hand out for a fist bump. It's something you'd expect from an older guy trying to pretend to be a 20something hacker. It thus comes off as insincere.
  - epi0Bauqu 17y ago
    Empirically, people seem to love or hate the name, i.e. it generates an emotional response. When I talk to "normals" this love/hate ratio is very high. I understand though that you've taken issue with the name right from the beginning. This is not the first time you've shared this viewpoint :)
    - mattmaroon 17y ago
      Ha, yeah wouldn't surprise me. I don't remember it but definitely believe you. I think what New Coke proved though is that haters have an unduly large influence. New Coke kicked both original Coke and Pepsi's asses in blind taste tests. It's possibly bad to have something that has a love to hate ratio, even if a large one, rather than something people respect but don't care much about one way or the other.
  - lanstein 17y ago
    I guess they can always change it to DDG down the road. Has a nice, more serious ring to it.
    - mzl 17y ago
      Doesn't really roll off the tongue. How about dudugo :) Seems to be taken though.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  I think you nailed it. There's a dichotomy between "silly non-specific" and "silly specific".

iamwil 17y ago

Google was a silly name for a while, and what do we think of it now? Here, I'll invoke "Tara" "The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act." - Tara Ploughman

cookiecaper 17y ago
Well, "Google" rolls off the tongue much easier than "Duck Duck Go". "Duck Duck Go" is also hard to "verb", as it were. I don't have a problem with the mentioned silliness of the name, I just think it's too long and hard to say/write.
- epi0Bauqu 17y ago
  Duck it! Working on shorter domain names...we have dukgo, though that isn't that memorable. I hope to have something soon though.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - axod 17y ago
    I'd say get something that you can easily say, spell, and use as a verb. bloip gibbit erdle jopple etc etc But rebranding does seem a big job to me. It's amazingly motivating when you start seeing your startups name appearing as a verb on twitter searches :)
    - mattmaroon 17y ago
      Rebranding is not too difficult if you don't get much traffic from organic search. It's a simple redirect and a notice on the page. It's also not too difficult when you're small but gets more costly as time goes on. If DDG succeeds, the customer base it has now will be something like .00001% of it's users.
  - anonjon 17y ago
    duckify! (?)

icey 17y ago

I think it's a matter of taste. A few people I've told about duckduckgo have mentioned it "sounded like a search engine's name" after I said that I thought the name wasn't that great.

mburney 17y ago

Actually the only reason I started using duck duck go is because the name sounds cool.

Hoff 17y ago

Pick some topic areas that are popular with some subset of the population. There are various groups that would welcome having certain search terms dropped from the indices and others that they favor weighted more highly, for instance. There are any number of ways to go to cater to specific search audiences. Start up multiple parallel DDG analogs of Google's Blackle <http://www.blackle.com&#62 http://www.blackle.com> site, for instance. For the business folks, call it PinstripeSearch or PrivateSearch or something suitable for the target audience. Graft a different presentation with conservative fonts and typography and tweak the search index ratings for the audience, and off you go. There are any number of audiences for specific searches. Yeah, the indexes get huge. But then you also get to cater to and advertise to specific audiences.

arethuza 17y ago

Well, for what it is worth, I rather like the name. Memorable, easy to spell and with the right amount of humor.

tomkinstinch 17y ago

Regardless of any meaning associated with it or how serious it sounds, "DuckDuckGo" takes a while to type...

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
He has dukgo.com as a short redirect.
- tomkinstinch 16y ago
  Great, thanks for the tip!

po 17y ago

When I saw the title of this HN post "Let me Duck Duck Go that for you" and clicked on it, I was expecting a blog posting about how why DDG doesn't have an easy enough name to ever catch on. I actually like the sillyness of the name but I'm not that fond of the name/logo of Duck Duck Go. I think it reminds me too much of Aflac.

Keyframe 17y ago

duckhunt is already taken!