In God We Trust

On July 30, 1956, the President approved a joint resolution of Congress declaring In God We Trust the national motto of the United States. The words had been used on some American coins before that date but not on all currency, and not without objection. According to a Wikipedia article, Theodore Roosevelt strongly disapproved of the idea of evoking God within the context of a "cheap" political motto. In a letter to William Boldly on November 11, 1907, President Roosevelt wrote: "My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does no good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege ... it seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements."

What’s a soul worth these days? Ask Anthony Shore

Via PRNewswire:

Landor Associates, one of the world’s leading strategic branding and design consultancies, today announced the appointment of Anthony Shore to Global Director, Naming & Writing. Shore was previously Creative Director of Naming & Writing at the San Francisco office of Landor.

In 2006, Shore was charged with establishing and leading Landor’s first naming-oriented Global Knowledge Sharing Team to optimize processes and resources worldwide. This resulted in a significant increase in naming assignments and an advancement of Landor’s capabilities in this area.

Charlie Wrench, Chief Executive Officer of Landor, said, “Over the course of Anthony’s career with Landor, he has shown nothing more than absolute passion for his work and an increasing determination to transform Landor’s worldwide naming network into the most accomplished and catalytic group in our industry. I trust that in just a few years time, this goal will be reached and Landor will be recognized as the world’s leading naming network.“

When asked about his goals moving forward, Shore said, “Developing great names for a global audience requires a deep understanding of many local languages and cultures. It also requires exceptional creativity and a strategic brand focus. My vision is to maximize the individual creativity and collective effectiveness of the two dozen brilliant namers Landor Associates has worldwide. With fantastic naming work, we provide a fantastic return for our clients.

Incarcerex - Ask Your Spin Doctor

America is addicted to the war on drugs.

List of Company Name Origins from Wikipedia

Where does the name Milorganite come from? A contest to name a new organic fertilizer was advertised in the National Fertilizer Magazine in 1925. First prize was awarded to McIver and Son of Charleston, South Carolina for their entry "Milorganite," derived from MILwaukee ORGAnic NITrogEn. "Why Milwaukee?" you ask.

For a list of other company name etymologies, check out Wikipedia.

Top 10 Worst Web App Names

Read/WriteWeb has nominated ten of the worst web application names, including Fairtilizer, Profilactic, Gravee, Licketyship, Oyogi, Layoffspace, iStalkr, Agester, Hooka, and Qoop.

NewTeeVee (which didn't make that list) has its own list of the top ten abominations of web video lingo.

Radar Love

Nova Spivak, CEO of Radar Networks, is off to Singapore. He is fulfilling a lifelong desire to meet, “date”, and marry the Singapore Girl from those old airline ads. His quest is akin to Borat’s longing for Pamela Anderson. The “Semantic Web (???)” hooha is just a desperate cover story. From his blog:

I’m sitting in the Dynasty Lounge in Taipei, en route to Singapore where I will be addressing around 100 ministers of the government there on the potential of the Semantic Web…

…We also chose a brand for our product, with help from the mad geniuses at Igor International. The new brand is SECRET but really cool — we love it, and you will too! We’ll be announcing the brand close to launch.

If you want to be invited to our launch and be one of the first to see how useful the Semantic Web really can be — sign up for our mailing list at http://www.radarnetworks.com/ — and feel free to invite your friends to sign up too. Only people who sign up will get on our waiting list. We already have around 2000 bloggers and other influencers pre-registered, and more are coming every day, so don’t wait — it will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. We’ll be letting people into the service in waves.

What’s the category killing product name going to be, or better yet, how do you cut through all of the Web 2.0 and 3.0 nonsense names and redefine the space with THE perfect name?

All we can say at this juncture is you MUST ignore ALL of Seth’s bad naming advice.

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Wii Fit Parody Video on YouTube

SarcasticGamer.com presents a satirical look at one of Nintendo's "Big" announcements at E3. Wii Fit was billed as a fitness breakthrough. It just looked like standing around to us.

Wii is Nintendo’s 7th generation video game console, and is the successor to Nintendo’s GameCube. Until its official name was announced on April 27, 2006, it was known by the codename Nintendo Revolution.

Remember when the revolution started, and the name Wii was unbelievable?

Social bookmarking overkill

Ok, just how many social bookmarking / link services can the Web accommodate? And will somebody please stop the madness and Just Say No to social bookmarking icon overkill on their blogs?

Click the image to engorge this example, where below the icons that appeared on an actual blog we’ve listed the service associated with each:

Be sure to savor the keen glut of Web 2.oism exhibited by the names above; for those of you who can still remember the ’90s, it’s deja vu all over again. Especially annoying is the spreading virus of interstitial periodicity that began with del.icio.us, as far as we care to tell, and has now spawned, just from the above sampling, “De.lirio.us” (you go girrl!), “co.mments” and the delightful “Ma.gnolia”. If you know of more, post them here in the Comments and we’ll compile a full list of these atrocities. U digg?

UPDATE 7.19: Tate, who publishes the "actual blog" in question (it has something to do with naming, I think, but what do we know?), has removed all the pretty little Web 2.0 icons from his site and written about the whole exhilarating experience: Oh yeah, well… um… You have bad posture! Does this represent a SURGE of defections from the social bookmarking iconoplastering movement? Only time will toil.

[ More posts about social bookmarking | More posts about web 2.0 ] [ More blogs about naming | More blogs about branding]

Need a new company or product name?

Or perhaps you need to rename an existing business? Let’s say, perchance, that you opened up a drinking establishment, and giddy with excitement you thought, “The Loose Stool would be a good name”. But now your little bar has become a bistro, and the chili is selling poorly…

Wordlab to the (free) rescue! Yes our own Wordlab Wordboard is a free forum with over 7800 registered users who will help you name anything, at no cost.

Court TV changes name

Igor was hired to create the new name for Court TV, which is…truTV. This excerpt from Variety tells the story:

Turner Entertainment Networks is rebranding Court TV as truTV, a moniker reflecting its ongoing conversion to an entertainment network heavy on reality shows and true crime.

“This gives us a focused brand and a wide playing field,” said Turner prexy Steve Koonin. “We felt the Court TV name was limiting us in defining what we are and what we are delivering.”

The name change marks another step in the channel’s conversion to an entertainment-focused web targeted at a demo the network refers to as “real engagers,” or those interested in true stories, widely defined as news, true crime, reality shows or nonfiction entertainment.