December 1st, 2004

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Technology
17 Comments »

Name Our Company

Jeremy Wright and I are kicking around the idea of starting a blog consulting and production company. The amount of interest around his auction (and the, uh, meagre interest around mine) indicates that there’s a market for this type of company. We’re planning on targeting medium to large organizations.

Today, we brainstormed on some names. We think it’s important, in light of the newness of the marketplace, that the name include the term ‘blog’ or ‘weblog’. Here are our favourites:

  • BlogFathers (thank you Boris for calling me one, and Lindsay for reminded me about it)
  • InsideBlogging

What do you think? Do you like either of those? Have you got any other suggestions?

Comments: 17 Responses so far

Sue
December 1st, 2004
2:36 pm

Could you please please pretty please get some kind of ROI metric for an external business blog before you go around helping companies spend their money that way? I just cringe at the idea of companies laying their dollars down for a blog just because they think it’s cool, or some PR consultant tells them it’s cool. I’ve yet to see any conclusive evidence that a business blog drives sales or reduces costs. Without that kind of evidence, you might as well be selling pet rocks.

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Darren
December 1st, 2004
5:31 pm

Sue: I’ve seen the same thing said about advertising, actually. I’d respond with three thoughts:

1) External business blogging is just a specialized kind of PR. If you’re a believer in PR (another difficult to measure subject), then blogging seems like a natural evolution.

2) New ideas are often the hardest to analyze up front.

3) Jeremy and I fully recognize that blogs are becoming a hot, new thing in business at the moment. Soon they’ll be a cold, old thing, but in the meantime, we thought we’d try to make some cash.

Which is not to say that I don’t drink the Cluetrain koolaid and believe 100% in business blogging. I think it’s an important step towards more transparent, more plain-spoken communication between companies and customers.

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bree
December 1st, 2004
5:50 pm

I like BlogFathers better than InsideBlogging. Wish I had a suggestion to add, but my brain is blank.

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richard
December 1st, 2004
6:29 pm

I mentioned it over on Jeremy’s blog as well, but I’ll include it here… the word “Blog” limits you to a degree, and using the word has about the same appearance (in my mind) as putting a “.com” in your corporation’s name did in 1999… IE, not an entirely positive choice, and is it something you necessarily want to have in your name 3 years from now?

I left a couple ideas over on his site’s comments…

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John Dumbrille
December 1st, 2004
6:40 pm

If they want to spend the money, chances are you can probably make it work for them. Microsoft is trying to reinvent itself as a blogging mecca nowadays - they tend to understand ROIs pretty well.

How about Bloggart, kind of a riff off braggart, art and blog. (You could explain all that in fine print). Too whimsical? - if so then try something manly, like Blogdriver. Bringiningitallbackblog might be too long, so I’ll stick with Blogdriver.

Hey thanks Darren. I heard you speak at the STC 2 years ago ( I think) and a light went on. Topics were RSS and CLuetrain. Blogged about that evening recently!

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Andrea
December 1st, 2004
6:42 pm

I agree with Richard — you don’t want to be tied to 2004.

On a side note, why “RomeoMurdersSheep”? Macbeth murders sleep and might want to branch out to sheep, but how does Romeo figure in?

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Richard
December 1st, 2004
7:37 pm

Yeah, names with “blog” in them are awfully 2004. (2002 for me, actually, since my two weblogs with “blog” in the title were started in 2002.) Better to go with a misspelled English word. I suggest whatever it is, replace all i’s with y’s.

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Susie Gardner
December 1st, 2004
7:52 pm

darren,
are you aware of kevin o’keefe at lexblog? he’s having good success in his niche, he tells me.

http://www.lexblog.com

as far as the name goes, i don’t know that i would understand the blogfathers name as a company looking for help starting a blog — it doesn’t seem to describe what you’re doing or what you’re selling… but i probably wouldn’t have called my company yahoo or google, either!

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Joe
December 1st, 2004
9:07 pm

Since your going to be a specialized PR provider for large companies you should stay away from cute names. Your name is part of the first impression. If the potential clients are into cute go with BlogFathers. Most large companies I’ve seen don’t do cute well or for very long. InsideBlogging would be an easier sell in a boardroom.

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Darren
December 1st, 2004
10:14 pm

Thanks for everyone’s comments. Regarding the blog-is-so-2004 feedback, I don’t think Jeremy and I view this as a super long-term endeavour. So, the shelf-life of ‘blog’ may not be an issue.

As for ‘RomeoMurdersSheep’, I got my plays mixed up. I just thought ‘MurdersSheep’ would be funny to the English Lit crowd. Plus, I never forget my eBay login, even though I rarely use it.

John: I just saw that post of yours–thanks for your kind words. It’s nice to hear that somebody remembers what the heck I was talking about.

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Boris Mann
December 1st, 2004
11:52 pm

Put blogs and RSS and/or Web 2.0 in your tagline. Have a more generic name as the actual name of the title. And yes, gratuitous use of “Y”s is encouraged.

If you make the keywords part of the title, then when all those auto-blogging tools that people use to post to their blogs will automatically pick them up as well (hence I tend to get linked as “B. Mann Consulting: Technology Consulting in Vancouver”).

Yet another veil in the mystery that is search engine voodoo is lifted…

Sue: if your business “blog” (I still hate the term…it’s just an easy way to publish content, not a frickin’ holy war or a way of life) does nothing more than raise your search ranking, that’s money probably better spent than on any scam link exchange/SEO business.

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Jens
December 2nd, 2004
12:21 am

BlogPerfect
SlashBlog
FirstBlog
The BusinessBloggers
The Blog Brothers
Blog’n'Breakfast / Blog&Breakfast
Sex, Blogs and Rock’n Roll (more of a book title)
BuildingBlog

Jens

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Canadian Headhunter (Michael)
December 2nd, 2004
9:13 am

Blogfathers isn’t bad. But I think it will be hard to say it clearly on the phone.

The Blog Hogs.
The Corporate Super-Bloggers.
The Blog-a-Long Cassidys.
The Blog Hoppers.

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andy
December 2nd, 2004
9:51 am

how about :

“bloggingForCanada inc”

what do you think Darren?

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Ray
December 2nd, 2004
11:21 am

BizBlog.
IncBlog.
Blog-O-Matic.

Blog: The Other Dot-bomb.

Not Your Father’s Old Mo’Blog…

OK, I’m out of ideas.

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Anonymous
December 2nd, 2004
7:34 pm

Blogging for Dollars

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Sue
December 5th, 2004
10:55 pm

I know you’ve already chosen InsideBlogging, but I was going to suggest “NextBigThing.com” and then you can recycle it many, many times. Unfortunately, that’s already taken.

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