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zoom.com is an audio equipment manufacturer, which was there before zoom.us. I guess that's what happens where they had to accept substandard domain, because t
by throw_a_grenade 1y ago
zoom.com is an audio equipment manufacturer, which was there before zoom.us.
I guess that's what happens where they had to accept substandard domain, because they were unwilling to be creative about their name.
- redbell 1y agoBut the dot com domain is now owned by Zoom Communications or just Zoom (as we know it). If you type "zoom.us" in your browser, you will be redirected to https://www.zoom.com/ https://www.zoom.com/
- rhubarbtree 1y agoIncidentally, Zoom seems a terrible name for a video conferencing app - anyone know why they chose it?
- thund 1y agoSubjective, Zoom is a pretty cool name
- j45 1y agoOne guess - fast video.
- j45 1y agoAdded context: Zoom delivered a step change in video conferencing quality for the many, vs the few, and in a lot of ways did seem to force others to be better. During the pandemic many people used zoom more than their cell phones.
- rhubarbtree 1y agoI immediately agreed with this, but at the same time it’s not “fast” is it? It’s higher quality or more reliably, something like that. But emotionally I agree it does feel “faster”.
- j45 1y agoFair point - it's smoother video that gives a better quality experience. The speed of starting a call sometimes could take a bit more but once established was higher quality than the alternatives at the time.
- eesmith 1y agoThe Wikipedia editors know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Communications#Early_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Communications#Early_year... : > In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom, influenced by Thacher Hurd's children's book Zoom City. It cites https://vator.tv/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years/ https://vator.tv/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-ye... where Jim Scheinman says: > “I loved this fun little book as much as my kids, and hoped to use the name someday for the perfect company that embodied the same values of creativity, exploration, happiness, and trust. And the name works perfectly with a product that connects us visually to one another and that always works so fast and seamlessly.“
- sidewndr46 1y agoThe reference to "Zoom City" is from an article published in 2020. It seems like a remarkably fitting ret-conning of what is probably a very boring branding decision.
- eesmith 1y agoWhat would be the point of ret-conning some other decision?
- JadeNB 1y ago> In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom, influenced by Thacher Hurd's children's book Zoom City. To save people the agony of visiting Wikipedia for themselves to check, changed from Saasbee. Which, good call.
- bakuninsbart 1y agoIt is a one-syllable word, easy to pronounce in many languages, quite distinct from other words and brands, and can easily be turned into a verb.
- rhubarbtree 1y agoWhy does that make it a good name for video in particular?
- Hobadee 1y agoVerbing your nouns is a great way to lose your trademark.
- DiggyJohnson 1y agoWhen they came up with it that would be a best case scenario.
- Talanes 1y agoAre there any actual recent examples of this? The major examples I've always heard are solidly in the 20th century. It's not like Google has had any problem holding their trademark.
- Hobadee 1y agoKleenex and Xerox were both (somewhat) recently in danger of loosing theirs. They both pulled pretty big campaigns to un-verb their trademarks. Google still has a bunch of other products that people are familiar with, so they are in less danger of loosing theirs right now, but give it some time (like 50 years, not 10) and it may happen, especially if they get broken up for being a monopoly. (Which has been mentioned)
- skywhopper 1y agoIt’s all relative. Is “Webex” better? “Skype”? “BlueJeans”??
- rhubarbtree 1y agoFair. They are worse.
- disillusioned 1y agoBlueJeans is one of those absolutely catastrophically stupid branding decisions. There's just........ no justification. It's confusing at best, and abbreviated as BJ at worst.
- thih9 1y ago> zoom.com is an audio equipment manufacturer False, the audio equipment manufacturer uses: https://zoomcorp.com/ https://zoomcorp.com/ The https://zoom.com https://zoom.com domain shows content from the video chat platform.
- ceejayoz 1y agoThey did buy zoom.com from someone in 2019, though, for $2M. https://domainnamewire.com/2019/03/23/did-zoom-pay-2-million-for-zoom-com/ https://domainnamewire.com/2019/03/23/did-zoom-pay-2-million...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lakkal 1y agoInteresting. I used to buy Zoom modems in the 80s-90s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Telephonics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Telephonics), but apparently they have nothing to do with either of the other two Zoom companies mentioned here. I had occasionally wondered but never looked into it until now.
- polynomial 1y agoBack in the day, wasn't it either Zoom or Hayes?
- kevinmhickey 1y agoDon't forget US Robotics
- dtgriscom 1y agoI always assumed that Zoom reacted to security/privacy concerns about its association with China by getting a "*.us" domain that sounded very United States.
- jsheard 1y agoAFAICT they've used that domain since day one, so probably not.
- zeristor 1y agoMaybe it’s just simple word play of “Zoom us” as in call us. As opposed to “Zoom me” which might be just for one person rather than group chat.
- mikedelfino 1y agoDo English speakers pronounce .us domains as dot us instead of dot u s?
- Ylpertnodi 1y agoDot yoo ess. Source: am European.
- KineticLensman 1y agoMe too: 'you ess' (British)
- Fokamul 1y agoMaybe after recent US events, everything will move to .ru TLD
- CPLX 1y agoThey've had zoom.com since at least 2019 or so. It used to just be a redirect to Zoom.us though they've made a switch since then.
- yahoozoo 1y agoThis is … Zombocom.
- op00to 1y agoYou can do anything at ZomboCom. Anything at all. The only limit ... is yourself.