OK, I’ve had it with e-names: E-card, e-trade, e-moneybroker, e-MDs, e-river, E-Classifieds, E-Pharmacy, E-Toys, E-Marketing. And quite frankly, i-names are annoying me, too: i-drive, i-Casino, i-Soft, I-Flowcorp, i-Planet, i-traffic, i-dentity, and perhaps the worst, i-Iman. And, yes, these are all actual companies.
First of all, there’s the obvious lack of creativity involved with the e- or i-names (it doesn’t take an e-genius to come up with them). This trend is even worse than the “let’s make up a word and let our business define it” trend that’s also quite popular these days (what exactly is a “Nuveen”?). But, at least with the made up words, down the road they don’t run as much risk of sounding antequated. Can you imagine 5 years from now how lame “E-Pharmacy” is going to sound? Planetrx.com, Mothernature.com, even Drugstore.com are better (though iDrugstore and eDrugstore — both of which are taken — are not better). For God’s sake, marketing people, if you’re so concerned with “branding,” try coming up with something: a. relevant, b. that actually means something, and c. that won’t sound like a 2-year-old made it up. -ram
Posted in Technology