The Internet name game

Early on in the Internet ferment, I used to get a kick out of the meaningless names that Internet sites were saddled with. Prodigy designed something called "Stim," which I suppose was short for Stimulation, or maybe it didn't mean anything, and it had a brief vogue. Turner Broadcasting countered with "Stiv," which was equally moronic, and equally short-lived. There was a brief vogue for short, cryptic names, perhaps fueled by Wired and HotWired's penchant for naming their sections with taut, meaningless nomenclature.

Now, the trend is back, sort of. Web sites that started off with long, important sounding names are going for brevity again. Case in point, The Entertainment Network, popularly known as TEN, which has just changed its name to Pogo.com. InfoSeek is being de-emphasized in favor of the shorter, pithier, Go. Deja News changed its name to Deja.com. And The Mining Co., which just became About.com. And I know a few others which are planning name changes.

It's not hard to figure out why this is happening now. According to Scott Kurnit, CEO and founder of About.com, his site's traffic is up almost 60 percent since the name change (which coincided with the IPO in May.) About.com is now the number 17 site, according to Media Metrix. Why About.com? "About is a very strong name," Kurnit says. "And it's extendable." Kurnit also likes it because it doesn't have to be spelled out when the URL is given out in radio ads (Kurnit claims he's heard announcers spelling out the names of Deja and Lycos on the radio).

Garth Chouteau, a spokesperson for the new Pogo.com, says his company had to buy the URL from the estate of Walt Kelly (he was the guy who drew the comic strip.) Chouteau says TEN opted for a name change because the old name was associated with avid gamer products, and the site was changing to provide games for the whole family. Because TEN is a number, it couldn't be trademarked, and The Entertainment Network was way too long. Chouteau says there's nothing ironic about Pogo as a name; it's just a short, pithy name, as much about pogoing at concerts as it is about that funny opossum that some of us remember. Chouteau says they've promised a link to a site for the Pogo comic strip, should Uncle Walt's heirs decide to build one.

Ultimately, a lot of this stems from what happened to InfoSeek. One of the paramount brand names on the Web, one of the early search engines, a rock of the Internet seemingly. Yet the cool heads behind Disney's online efforts, such as the now-departed Jake Winebaum, decide to promote a wholly new, short and sweet name, and it appears to work.

As browsers themselves move toward de-emphasizing URLs in favor of easy-to-recall phrases, the guys in charge of Web sites are going to have to move to keep up with the technology. I predict a wave of further name changes coming up, as this trend becomes a tidal wave. The biggest problem is going to be to come up with something short, memorable and catchy that no one is using already. Names like Now, Today, that are "extendable," to quote Scott Kurnit.

Or maybe we should bring Stim and Spiv back. They're still a site up at Stim.com, but Spiv.com seems to be available.