5 ms·

Let me just say this - both mastodon and activitypub are terrible names. I say that as a consumer not as an expert on anything. It's not a dealbreaker for me bu

Let me just say this - both mastodon and activitypub are terrible names. I say that as a consumer not as an expert on anything. It's not a dealbreaker for me but platform popularity by the masses depends on color schemes and catchy names. I feel the same way about duckduckgo. Great products though.

daveid 8y ago
What would be a better name?
- kovacs 8y ago
  Nearly anything that's ideally one or two syllables, phonetically easy to say, and can have a reasonable brand built around it. Not that these are awesome but just examples off the top of my head so I'm not just saying "they suck" without providing alternatives... Ivy - Naturally grows and spreads and often is seen climbing walls. Maybe in this case it climbs and covers a FB wall :-P Also a play on FB being started at an ivy league school. Greenfield - Maybe a reasonable name for the protocol that those apps can be built upon? "Ivy's built on the greenfield protocol" Anyway, that's what I came up with in 10-15 minutes of brainstorming and I would pose that those are much easier, approachable, and just better names than these others that simply don't elicit any sort of emotion (or negative ones). Names matter, a lot. You need to be able to tell a story that moves people to action. That's what marketing folks do that adds a ton of value. Most open source projects don't have marketing folks so... :-)
  - briandear 8y ago
    Pied Piper is the best name.
  - type0 8y ago
    The better name to Mastodon would be Pleroma!
    - kovacs 8y ago
      face palm
  - incompatible 8y ago
    Australians will just shorten it to "Masto". It's no big deal.
egypturnash 8y ago
Twitter’s a pretty stupid name too. So’s Facebook. You get used to them after a while.
- resu_nimda 8y ago
  "Twitter" and "tweet" sound very light and airy, almost musical; the theme of birds chirping lines up well with the format of seeing many short messages. "Twitter" is also largely an abstract word without much prior association. A mastodon is a massive, hairy, smelly beast. It's also an extremely well known heavy metal band. For a Twitter clone it makes absolutely no sense. "Toot" as well has some existing connotations I wouldn't think they would want to associate with...just seems like a total non-starter.
- briandear 8y ago
  Facebook came from actual face books at universities. It a brilliant name because the entire point was to see people you might want to sleep with. It wasn’t about sharing photos with mom.
  - incompatible 8y ago
    Strange that it didn't evolve into Tinder.
    - kaiby 8y ago
      It might have if smartphones were as ubiquitous in 2004 as it is in 2018.
    - dingo_bat 8y ago
      I met my wife over Facebook and its messenger.
munificent 8y ago
"World wide web", "email, "Internet", and "HTTP" are pretty bad names too.
- badrabbit 8y ago
  They didn't have competition when they gained mass adoption. There was gopher for http but it but http but that was before consumers were sold either item. Needless to say those are systems and protocols not products.

daveid 8y ago

What would be a better name?

kovacs 8y ago
Nearly anything that's ideally one or two syllables, phonetically easy to say, and can have a reasonable brand built around it. Not that these are awesome but just examples off the top of my head so I'm not just saying "they suck" without providing alternatives... Ivy - Naturally grows and spreads and often is seen climbing walls. Maybe in this case it climbs and covers a FB wall :-P Also a play on FB being started at an ivy league school. Greenfield - Maybe a reasonable name for the protocol that those apps can be built upon? "Ivy's built on the greenfield protocol" Anyway, that's what I came up with in 10-15 minutes of brainstorming and I would pose that those are much easier, approachable, and just better names than these others that simply don't elicit any sort of emotion (or negative ones). Names matter, a lot. You need to be able to tell a story that moves people to action. That's what marketing folks do that adds a ton of value. Most open source projects don't have marketing folks so... :-)
- briandear 8y ago
  Pied Piper is the best name.
- type0 8y ago
  The better name to Mastodon would be Pleroma!
  - kovacs 8y ago
    face palm
- incompatible 8y ago
  Australians will just shorten it to "Masto". It's no big deal.

egypturnash 8y ago

Twitter’s a pretty stupid name too. So’s Facebook. You get used to them after a while.

resu_nimda 8y ago
"Twitter" and "tweet" sound very light and airy, almost musical; the theme of birds chirping lines up well with the format of seeing many short messages. "Twitter" is also largely an abstract word without much prior association. A mastodon is a massive, hairy, smelly beast. It's also an extremely well known heavy metal band. For a Twitter clone it makes absolutely no sense. "Toot" as well has some existing connotations I wouldn't think they would want to associate with...just seems like a total non-starter.
briandear 8y ago
Facebook came from actual face books at universities. It a brilliant name because the entire point was to see people you might want to sleep with. It wasn’t about sharing photos with mom.
- incompatible 8y ago
  Strange that it didn't evolve into Tinder.
  - kaiby 8y ago
    It might have if smartphones were as ubiquitous in 2004 as it is in 2018.
  - dingo_bat 8y ago
    I met my wife over Facebook and its messenger.

munificent 8y ago

"World wide web", "email, "Internet", and "HTTP" are pretty bad names too.

badrabbit 8y ago
They didn't have competition when they gained mass adoption. There was gopher for http but it but http but that was before consumers were sold either item. Needless to say those are systems and protocols not products.