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I had a similar experience this weekend. My artist friends are very open to the idea of moving off of Google, because tracking doesn’t fit with their ethics. Bu
by iamdamian 6y ago
I had a similar experience this weekend. My artist friends are very open to the idea of moving off of Google, because tracking doesn’t fit with their ethics. But they also want confidence up front that the alternative will work for them and is a popular, polished service.
My experience is that the name ‘DuckDuckGo’ gives a bad first impression and is holding back growth for the product. IMO the brand is in an uncanny valley where the individual words do mean something to everyday people (unlike, say, Google), and there’s a vague allusion to a children’s game, but the concepts don’t come together or inspire confidence. It’s not so much about being ‘childish’ (re: other threads on this page) as it is about being unpolished and a little nonsensical.
They would be better off with 1) a simple one-word name or 2) a more complete name with an obvious and thoughtful layer of meaning, even if more than one word.
- ragnese 6y agoBecause Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc all have professional sounding names? Let me tweet about it.
- iamdamian 6y agoI’m not sure which part of my comment you’re reacting to. I don’t think I ever claimed that they need a professional sounding name.
- ragnese 6y agoI was reacting to the words "unpolished", "allusion to a children's game", "inspire confidence", "nonsensical", "thoughtful layer of meaning"
- iamdamian 6y agoMy take is that you have taken a structured set of claims I wrote down, picked phrases I used in that structure, and rearranged them to say something I didn’t.
- ragnese 6y agoIf that's the case, it wasn't intentional. My reading of your comment was that you were criticizing DuckDuckGo for not inspiring confidence. I understood the name to be at least one of the reasons. EDIT: Actually, even now, rereading your post I feel like your accusation of me cherry-picking is not fair. Your entire message was about the name of DuckDuckGo. You said "the name [...] gives a bad first impression", "it's not about [...] as it is about being unpolished and a little nonsensical.", "They would be better off with [...] a more complete name with an obvious and thoughtful layer of meaning." I don't understand how I could have interpreted your message incorrectly.
- fsflover 6y ago> They would be better off with 1) a simple one-word name https://duck.com https://duck.com
- RandomBacon 6y agoPerson A: "What is ...?" Person B: "I don't know, duck it." Person A: "What did you just say‽" Person B: "I said Duck it, not F..." Also, doesn't help that 'd' and 'f' are right next to each other on a qwerty keyboard.
- fsflover 6y agoQuack it!
- RandomBacon 6y agoThat sounds just as silly as I imagine "Google it!" must have sounded to other people. I will try telling others to "quack it" :-) Thank you!
- iamdamian 6y agoWhich would be fine if it was the service name (but it’s not).