16 ms·

Clever Names Aren’t Always a Good Thing

111 points by phillco 15y ago

kristofferR 15y ago
I remember reading somewhere that the name "Ninite" actually was generated by a script which checked for available .com domains. Found it: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-by-a-computer-program http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
domador 15y ago
It's funny, since Ninite ran a very elaborate process to find that very name: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-by-a-computer-program http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b... To me it seems like nailing the perfect 2nd level .com domain isn't as important as before. How often does the average user type a URL directly, rather than typing key words into a Google search field?
huckfinnaafb 15y ago
downloadmultipleappsatonce.com is available. I think the larger issue here is search engine visibility. Although I'm not sure what the big fuss is- he described the site to someone and got a quick answer. Isn't how you usually find lost stuff?
domador 15y ago
We geeks seem to have a fixation on clever names. I loved the name "Froogle", but Google made a wise move in changing it to "Google Product Search" (much friendlier to its target users). Speaking of which, Google's own name was a particularly geeky choice. I wonder if their users had a hard time remembering what it was or typing it in back in Google's early days.
- domador 15y ago
  I'm not immune to geeky name choices myself. I chose "Debonware" as a website name a few years back. (It was a lame play on words on "debonair" and "software".) I later abandoned it and switched to "Domador Software". That's still a bit iffy, and not as memorable to English speakers as it would be to Spanish speakers. However, I called my main product "Two-Click Reminder", which is mostly descriptive, not very clever, yet should be much easier for users to remember and be able to search for later on.
pyninja 15y ago
I solve this problem by bookmarking the website and putting some keywords, like "automated software install", in the description.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  Which, of course, works better if the tool in question isn't usually used to install useful things on a new machine that doesn't yet have useful things on it -- browsers and bookmarks, for example. :-) FWIW, I have also forgotten "Ninite" on more than one occasion, but I think it's the only tool I routinely use where I have repeatedly forgotten the name. Maybe there is something about that particular name that makes it hard to remember, rather than a general problem with any unusual name?
  - pyninja 15y ago
    Which is why you should keep your bookmarks in the cloud :)
Acorn 15y ago
I always remember it as "night night".. "ni' night"
Legion 15y ago
I've suffered the exact same inability to remember the name Ninite. After a while, the name finally stuck, but I've had multiple "scramble around on Google trying to find it again" incidents, as the author described. Though recently, I got myself a Pinboard account, and now I ruthlessly tag and bag any site/tool I might want to find again.
jacobbijani 15y ago
That isn't a clever name. It's a bad name.
loumf 15y ago
I have this problem with nearly every startup mentioned on HN -- it's not that some of them don't have good names -- there's just too many of them. Then, when I have the actual problem that I saw the solution for, they have no SEO yet, so I can't find them by description. The best solution for this is what Hipmunk is doing -- no way I'd remember it except -- they buy lots of remarketing style ads. I clicked through to the site the first time I heard about it, and I get tons of ads for it all of the time everywhere -- I remember it now.
- kn0thing 15y ago
  Don't forget the mascot ;) we're the travel search that's chipmunk without the "C."
  - minikomi 15y ago
    "For travel search without the hassle, try chipmunk without the c". It's so cheesy, it works!
  - GFischer 15y ago
    My mother actually asked on Facebook last whek whether someone remembered the name of a flight search that had some cute mascot :P and yes, the 2nd reply gave her the name "hipmunk" :) so the mascot does help with remembering. (I'll update with the actual post, but Facebook is banned at work)
JonnieCache 15y ago
As the proprietor of http://cleverna.me http://cleverna.me, I can confirm this. No-one reads my blog. At least, anyone who does isn't pulling down the analytics script.
- Joakal 15y ago
  You should do better analytics; combine server access logs with analytics script to determine your script and non-script audience.
swies 15y ago
I'm a co-founder of Ninite. We hear this a lot, but I don't think it's a big deal. Traffic has been growing well since we launched and we install 1,000,000 apps every week now. The real problem is that there's not really a term for what we do. The key part in all these stories is that even searching for us is hard. We're doing something totally new so we might as well call it something totally new. I'm also just aesthetically opposed to descriptive names. The other part of this is that we made the product so lightweight that it goes away after you use it. This is one of the reasons people love it, but it does hurt retention. I think we got this choice right though. It's way more important for people to love your product than awkwardly hook them somehow. If they love the product they'll get back to you. That said, we have just released an auto-updater product that helps solve this retention issue in a natural way. https://ninite.com/updater/ https://ninite.com/updater/ It will be interesting to see if that reduces these complaints about Ninite being hard to find and remember.
- ora600 15y ago
  This is almost like Oracle support telling me "There is no problem" after I call them about my database corruption. The author, who obviously loves your software, couldn't find you enough times that he wrote a blog post about it. There are several reddit thread about this issue. Several replies to this thread express the same frustration - they can't find your software when they know it exists and want to use it. You hear it a lot yourself too. But still you don't think its a big deal. I'm wondering what kind of evidence will convince you its a big deal. It sounds like awesome software. I'm glad I've heard of it. I just hope I'll remember the name when I'll need it.
  - swies 15y ago
    Oops, I didn't mean to come off as saying that the author's problem isn't real. I understand where he's coming from and we hear similar things from a lot of users. But, there's not a good solution available so I don't really worry about it day to day. We're not going to change the name at this point, and I think people have started to see us enough that its becoming less and less of a problem. Actually, lots of people do remember the name. Our top 26 searches to find the site are variations or misspellings on the name. 27 is "install multiple programs" and then we're back to the name until "multi installer" at 40. We got a quarter million visits last month from people typing ninite or ninite.com into google. I also don't think founders of new startups should fret too much over naming. Just make something great, release it, and improve it. The catchiest name in the world won't save a bad product. Product is the high bit here, naming is lower than you'd think.
heyitsnick 15y ago
For me it's sixth in the google search results for "automated setup tool." I don't see the problem.
- sorbus 15y ago
  The last paragraph of the post acknowledges that, and points out the problem: "Nowadays, Ninite finally shows up on the front page on Google for “automated software install”, so the problem’s fading away for them. But in your early days of your project, you’re not going to have a good search engine ranking to rely on, and you’ll want to keep as many of your early adopters as you can. Name your software appropriately."
- rmc 15y ago
  6th? So that's probably a click through rate of 2% for people who search for that term. That's kinda crap.
rkalla 15y ago
Adding to the thread, anyone that needs to deal with Windows XP or Windows Vista installs, nLite[1] and vLite[2] are in this same vein, but help you build custom installs. (Also forgotten this one about once a year). [1] http://www.nliteos.com/ http://www.nliteos.com/ [2] http://www.vlite.net/ http://www.vlite.net/
spoondan 15y ago
Until I read the post about how the name was selected from a list of computer-generated options, I (and apparently a few others here) thought it was a play off of, "ni' night." This made sense to me: you start Ninite to do unattended installs and then head off to bed. Regardless, I think the name is actually pretty good. The issue for me is that the site has so little branding and personality to it that nothing reinforces the name. It's great that it gets you to the functionality right away, but I think you can preserve that quality and add some branding elements that reinforce the name. Two ideas jump immediately to mind. The first is to play off, "ni' night," and use a darkened children's room, the night sky, or a children's bedtime book theme. You could add a dark background with a memorable graphical element such as a poster bed or the moon. The second is to conceive of "Ninite" as some sort of cool new chemical element -- a laboratory, the periodic table, or chemical structure diagrams could serve as themes. Regardless, I'd move "Featured In" to be a horizontal set of badges below the screenshot and place a large logotype to the left of the screenshot with the tagline, "The Easiest, Fastest Way to Update and Install Software."
- swies 15y ago
  These are nice ideas, thanks for the feedback. The chemical element angle is one I definitely thought about when we first looked at the name.
  - cpeterso 15y ago
    The "ni' night" imagery doesn't really work if the official pronunciation is "NIN-ite", not "NI-nite". I had assumed the name was "NINE-ite" until I read the Ninite blog: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-by-a-computer-program http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...
ihodes 15y ago
At first, I agree. But then I look at my running programs: emacs, Steam, Safari, Python, Clojure, along with the more descriptive Finder, iChat, iTerm2, Mail. Somehow, I think the problem has more to do with how obtrusive or how much interaction you have with a program rather than the name. What would you call Ninite?
- zem 15y ago
  > What would you call Ninite? install-in-one
- lbk 15y ago
  > What would you call Ninite? install-them-all Or go with what people are already searching for : install-multiple-programs
- sien 15y ago
  Onestall.
- inportb 15y ago
  Um, I'd call it a package manager.
  - gopi 15y ago
    > What would you call Ninite? I would prefer Installware as its business friendly (installware.com is available for $7500), not sure if it infringes the existing name InstallAware though! ... If you cannot spend that much then TurboInstall is good too and the domain turboinstall.com is available for $50 Also i would listen to patio's advice and focus on SEO. You can write atleast 30 quality articles in this area
patio11 15y ago
I've had they same issue with Ninite, actually. I'm agnostic on whether it needs a different name. For a use-once-in-a-blue-moon product which fixes an immediate need, it probably needs better SEO. The simplest baby step is to write ten or twenty pages about pain points and how Ninite fixes them.
- swies 15y ago
  We could probably use more SEO, but we're actively fighting that once in a blue moon use reputation. We're working to position Ninite as a great general download site and our new Ninite updater should help repeat use. Even with a single app, clicking next next next through an installer is silly. Our paid users end up using Ninite daily at their work already. A big issue with SEO for us is that normal users don't even imagine that what Ninite does is possible. I think some mix of education and oblique SEO could help, but I think the newness of what we do complicates things a lot. We aren't hurting for traffic, but it's primarily word of mouth and press so far.
  - Poiesis 15y ago
    I see where you're going, but I'm not sure how successful you'll be. Me? I'd go big with something memorable. Think something like Hudson's approach. I was thinking a mascot with an easier name to remember: maybe a cute dog (Lassie! Install!). A robot might make more sense given the theme. Hey! Maybe a robot dog! I bet you could own the search [robot dog installer] even if you picked (another) unmemorable name for the dog.
- smhinsey 15y ago
  I just recently rebuilt my workstation and wanted to use Ninite but I couldn't remember the name and couldn't find it via search. This is the second time that's happened, although the first time was before the name change, so I don't really count it. (Although now that I think of it, I can't recall the original name either.)
  - swies 15y ago
    We used to be Volery at getvolery.com but pg advised us to change that since Dropbox had such a hard time eventually getting dropbox.com.
demian 15y ago
If you can't remember the name, then it's not clever. PS: I believe only "lifestyle" products can get away with that kind of fantasy name. Things that impact and change significantly the way you do something that you do often.
- ideaoverload 15y ago
  'If you can't remember the name, then it's not clever.' Agreed 100%. Now it's likely too late but wouldn't batchsetup.com be easier and not so generic (edit:available for registration as time of posting)?
resnamen 15y ago
I feel the same way about Web 2.0 names with trendy dropped vowels. Bnter, for example - is it bantr? bntr? banter? These brands provide great fodder for typosquatters, I'm sure.
deleted 15y ago
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killerswan 15y ago
VLC is another tool I had trouble memorizing the name of. "VideoLAN? That must be something different..."
- minikomi 15y ago
  However, you can google video orange cone and find it
ohashi 15y ago
I used Ninite today on a new computer, remembered it off the top of my head without issue. Keep up the great work guys :)
ThomPete 15y ago
The problem with regards to names is simply overrated. I personally have 000fff.org (Black&White) and I have no problem attracting visitors. People click links, most only click one time in their life and never get back. For those who end up using it they will take the time to either bookmark it the browsers history will most often be enough. Would it be better with an easy to decipher name? Sure. But it's not a law. Good product is what matter.
Evgeny 15y ago
There is no wikipedia article on the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon for some reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_(disambiguation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_(disambiguation) Does anyone know enough on the subject to create one? I had to read up on it here http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/ http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon... But not sure how reliable the article is.
delackner 15y ago
Why not apply the lessons of the netflix prize to this problem? Create a contest to produce a site that provides the most referrer traffic to your product.

111 points by phillco 15y ago

I remember reading somewhere that the name "Ninite" actually was generated by a script which checked for available .com domains. Found it: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-by-a-computer-program http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

domador 15y ago

It's funny, since Ninite ran a very elaborate process to find that very name: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-by-a-computer-program http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b... To me it seems like nailing the perfect 2nd level .com domain isn't as important as before. How often does the average user type a URL directly, rather than typing key words into a Google search field?

huckfinnaafb 15y ago

downloadmultipleappsatonce.com is available. I think the larger issue here is search engine visibility. Although I'm not sure what the big fuss is- he described the site to someone and got a quick answer. Isn't how you usually find lost stuff?

domador 15y ago

We geeks seem to have a fixation on clever names. I loved the name "Froogle", but Google made a wise move in changing it to "Google Product Search" (much friendlier to its target users). Speaking of which, Google's own name was a particularly geeky choice. I wonder if their users had a hard time remembering what it was or typing it in back in Google's early days.

domador 15y ago
I'm not immune to geeky name choices myself. I chose "Debonware" as a website name a few years back. (It was a lame play on words on "debonair" and "software".) I later abandoned it and switched to "Domador Software". That's still a bit iffy, and not as memorable to English speakers as it would be to Spanish speakers. However, I called my main product "Two-Click Reminder", which is mostly descriptive, not very clever, yet should be much easier for users to remember and be able to search for later on.

pyninja 15y ago

I solve this problem by bookmarking the website and putting some keywords, like "automated software install", in the description.

Silhouette 15y ago
Which, of course, works better if the tool in question isn't usually used to install useful things on a new machine that doesn't yet have useful things on it -- browsers and bookmarks, for example. :-) FWIW, I have also forgotten "Ninite" on more than one occasion, but I think it's the only tool I routinely use where I have repeatedly forgotten the name. Maybe there is something about that particular name that makes it hard to remember, rather than a general problem with any unusual name?
- pyninja 15y ago
  Which is why you should keep your bookmarks in the cloud :)

Acorn 15y ago

I always remember it as "night night".. "ni' night"

Legion 15y ago

I've suffered the exact same inability to remember the name Ninite. After a while, the name finally stuck, but I've had multiple "scramble around on Google trying to find it again" incidents, as the author described. Though recently, I got myself a Pinboard account, and now I ruthlessly tag and bag any site/tool I might want to find again.

jacobbijani 15y ago

That isn't a clever name. It's a bad name.

loumf 15y ago

I have this problem with nearly every startup mentioned on HN -- it's not that some of them don't have good names -- there's just too many of them. Then, when I have the actual problem that I saw the solution for, they have no SEO yet, so I can't find them by description. The best solution for this is what Hipmunk is doing -- no way I'd remember it except -- they buy lots of remarketing style ads. I clicked through to the site the first time I heard about it, and I get tons of ads for it all of the time everywhere -- I remember it now.

kn0thing 15y ago
Don't forget the mascot ;) we're the travel search that's chipmunk without the "C."
- minikomi 15y ago
  "For travel search without the hassle, try chipmunk without the c". It's so cheesy, it works!
- GFischer 15y ago
  My mother actually asked on Facebook last whek whether someone remembered the name of a flight search that had some cute mascot :P and yes, the 2nd reply gave her the name "hipmunk" :) so the mascot does help with remembering. (I'll update with the actual post, but Facebook is banned at work)

JonnieCache 15y ago

As the proprietor of http://cleverna.me http://cleverna.me, I can confirm this. No-one reads my blog. At least, anyone who does isn't pulling down the analytics script.

Joakal 15y ago
You should do better analytics; combine server access logs with analytics script to determine your script and non-script audience.

swies 15y ago

I'm a co-founder of Ninite. We hear this a lot, but I don't think it's a big deal. Traffic has been growing well since we launched and we install 1,000,000 apps every week now. The real problem is that there's not really a term for what we do. The key part in all these stories is that even searching for us is hard. We're doing something totally new so we might as well call it something totally new. I'm also just aesthetically opposed to descriptive names. The other part of this is that we made the product so lightweight that it goes away after you use it. This is one of the reasons people love it, but it does hurt retention. I think we got this choice right though. It's way more important for people to love your product than awkwardly hook them somehow. If they love the product they'll get back to you. That said, we have just released an auto-updater product that helps solve this retention issue in a natural way. https://ninite.com/updater/ https://ninite.com/updater/ It will be interesting to see if that reduces these complaints about Ninite being hard to find and remember.

ora600 15y ago
This is almost like Oracle support telling me "There is no problem" after I call them about my database corruption. The author, who obviously loves your software, couldn't find you enough times that he wrote a blog post about it. There are several reddit thread about this issue. Several replies to this thread express the same frustration - they can't find your software when they know it exists and want to use it. You hear it a lot yourself too. But still you don't think its a big deal. I'm wondering what kind of evidence will convince you its a big deal. It sounds like awesome software. I'm glad I've heard of it. I just hope I'll remember the name when I'll need it.
- swies 15y ago
  Oops, I didn't mean to come off as saying that the author's problem isn't real. I understand where he's coming from and we hear similar things from a lot of users. But, there's not a good solution available so I don't really worry about it day to day. We're not going to change the name at this point, and I think people have started to see us enough that its becoming less and less of a problem. Actually, lots of people do remember the name. Our top 26 searches to find the site are variations or misspellings on the name. 27 is "install multiple programs" and then we're back to the name until "multi installer" at 40. We got a quarter million visits last month from people typing ninite or ninite.com into google. I also don't think founders of new startups should fret too much over naming. Just make something great, release it, and improve it. The catchiest name in the world won't save a bad product. Product is the high bit here, naming is lower than you'd think.

heyitsnick 15y ago

For me it's sixth in the google search results for "automated setup tool." I don't see the problem.

sorbus 15y ago
The last paragraph of the post acknowledges that, and points out the problem: "Nowadays, Ninite finally shows up on the front page on Google for “automated software install”, so the problem’s fading away for them. But in your early days of your project, you’re not going to have a good search engine ranking to rely on, and you’ll want to keep as many of your early adopters as you can. Name your software appropriately."
rmc 15y ago
6th? So that's probably a click through rate of 2% for people who search for that term. That's kinda crap.

rkalla 15y ago

Adding to the thread, anyone that needs to deal with Windows XP or Windows Vista installs, nLite[1] and vLite[2] are in this same vein, but help you build custom installs. (Also forgotten this one about once a year). [1] http://www.nliteos.com/ http://www.nliteos.com/ [2] http://www.vlite.net/ http://www.vlite.net/

spoondan 15y ago

Until I read the post about how the name was selected from a list of computer-generated options, I (and apparently a few others here) thought it was a play off of, "ni' night." This made sense to me: you start Ninite to do unattended installs and then head off to bed. Regardless, I think the name is actually pretty good. The issue for me is that the site has so little branding and personality to it that nothing reinforces the name. It's great that it gets you to the functionality right away, but I think you can preserve that quality and add some branding elements that reinforce the name. Two ideas jump immediately to mind. The first is to play off, "ni' night," and use a darkened children's room, the night sky, or a children's bedtime book theme. You could add a dark background with a memorable graphical element such as a poster bed or the moon. The second is to conceive of "Ninite" as some sort of cool new chemical element -- a laboratory, the periodic table, or chemical structure diagrams could serve as themes. Regardless, I'd move "Featured In" to be a horizontal set of badges below the screenshot and place a large logotype to the left of the screenshot with the tagline, "The Easiest, Fastest Way to Update and Install Software."

swies 15y ago
These are nice ideas, thanks for the feedback. The chemical element angle is one I definitely thought about when we first looked at the name.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  The "ni' night" imagery doesn't really work if the official pronunciation is "NIN-ite", not "NI-nite". I had assumed the name was "NINE-ite" until I read the Ninite blog: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-by-a-computer-program http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

ihodes 15y ago

At first, I agree. But then I look at my running programs: emacs, Steam, Safari, Python, Clojure, along with the more descriptive Finder, iChat, iTerm2, Mail. Somehow, I think the problem has more to do with how obtrusive or how much interaction you have with a program rather than the name. What would you call Ninite?

zem 15y ago
> What would you call Ninite? install-in-one
lbk 15y ago
> What would you call Ninite? install-them-all Or go with what people are already searching for : install-multiple-programs
sien 15y ago
Onestall.
inportb 15y ago
Um, I'd call it a package manager.
- gopi 15y ago
  > What would you call Ninite? I would prefer Installware as its business friendly (installware.com is available for $7500), not sure if it infringes the existing name InstallAware though! ... If you cannot spend that much then TurboInstall is good too and the domain turboinstall.com is available for $50 Also i would listen to patio's advice and focus on SEO. You can write atleast 30 quality articles in this area

patio11 15y ago

I've had they same issue with Ninite, actually. I'm agnostic on whether it needs a different name. For a use-once-in-a-blue-moon product which fixes an immediate need, it probably needs better SEO. The simplest baby step is to write ten or twenty pages about pain points and how Ninite fixes them.

swies 15y ago
We could probably use more SEO, but we're actively fighting that once in a blue moon use reputation. We're working to position Ninite as a great general download site and our new Ninite updater should help repeat use. Even with a single app, clicking next next next through an installer is silly. Our paid users end up using Ninite daily at their work already. A big issue with SEO for us is that normal users don't even imagine that what Ninite does is possible. I think some mix of education and oblique SEO could help, but I think the newness of what we do complicates things a lot. We aren't hurting for traffic, but it's primarily word of mouth and press so far.
- Poiesis 15y ago
  I see where you're going, but I'm not sure how successful you'll be. Me? I'd go big with something memorable. Think something like Hudson's approach. I was thinking a mascot with an easier name to remember: maybe a cute dog (Lassie! Install!). A robot might make more sense given the theme. Hey! Maybe a robot dog! I bet you could own the search [robot dog installer] even if you picked (another) unmemorable name for the dog.
smhinsey 15y ago
I just recently rebuilt my workstation and wanted to use Ninite but I couldn't remember the name and couldn't find it via search. This is the second time that's happened, although the first time was before the name change, so I don't really count it. (Although now that I think of it, I can't recall the original name either.)
- swies 15y ago
  We used to be Volery at getvolery.com but pg advised us to change that since Dropbox had such a hard time eventually getting dropbox.com.

demian 15y ago

If you can't remember the name, then it's not clever. PS: I believe only "lifestyle" products can get away with that kind of fantasy name. Things that impact and change significantly the way you do something that you do often.

ideaoverload 15y ago
'If you can't remember the name, then it's not clever.' Agreed 100%. Now it's likely too late but wouldn't batchsetup.com be easier and not so generic (edit:available for registration as time of posting)?

resnamen 15y ago

I feel the same way about Web 2.0 names with trendy dropped vowels. Bnter, for example - is it bantr? bntr? banter? These brands provide great fodder for typosquatters, I'm sure.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

killerswan 15y ago

VLC is another tool I had trouble memorizing the name of. "VideoLAN? That must be something different..."

minikomi 15y ago
However, you can google video orange cone and find it

ohashi 15y ago

I used Ninite today on a new computer, remembered it off the top of my head without issue. Keep up the great work guys :)

ThomPete 15y ago

The problem with regards to names is simply overrated. I personally have 000fff.org (Black&White) and I have no problem attracting visitors. People click links, most only click one time in their life and never get back. For those who end up using it they will take the time to either bookmark it the browsers history will most often be enough. Would it be better with an easy to decipher name? Sure. But it's not a law. Good product is what matter.

Evgeny 15y ago

There is no wikipedia article on the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon for some reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_(disambiguation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_(disambiguation) Does anyone know enough on the subject to create one? I had to read up on it here http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/ http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon... But not sure how reliable the article is.

delackner 15y ago

Why not apply the lessons of the netflix prize to this problem? Create a contest to produce a site that provides the most referrer traffic to your product.