8 Terrible Tech Product Names
The truth of product names is they have more negative power than positive power. A good name won’t sell people on a product as much as a bad name will scare people off. That’s why choosing a great company or product name is not nearly as important as avoiding a bad one.
That may seem like an easy task. But history has proven it’s not. There are a ton of companies/products out there with terrible names. And for some reason many of them are in the tech industry. Here are eight great (and by “great” we mean “awful”) examples:
1. D-Box
The name for simulators used in movie theaters that provide a “4-D” experience (hence the “box”). It either sounds like a torture chamber or makes you think of “D-bag”. Neither one is a good connotation.
2. i’M Watch
Maybe you are watch. But I don’t want to wear you. Mostly because of your name. Pretty much anything that tries to be clever with the already beaten-to-death “i” naming convention is a loser.
3. Qwikster/Friendster
Another convention tech products need to lose is adding “-ster” to the end of a name. This almost never works. All it does is make people think of this old Rob Schneider SNL sketch. Which is not great.
4. iMuffs
Seriously, stop with the “i” products. And unless you’re selling ear muffs, don’t use the word “muff” in your product name.
5. Chumby
This little bean bag gizmo came out in 2008. It’s tough to know what they were going for with the name. Is it your chubby chum? A cousin of Gumby? Either way, it created a name that people were a little embarrassed to say. I’m sure somebody bought a Chumby. But nobody wanted to say “I just got a Chumby” out loud.
6. Qriocity
Another big “don’t” when choosing your product name is mixing up letter sounds. A perfect example: Sony’s Qriocity, which was the name of a music and streaming service. Man, that name is hard to type. It’s also hard to read and say. Your goal with a product name should never be to scramble your customers’ brains.
7. 🙂 – AKA Smiley
Yes, Samsung once named a phone with an emoticon. Much like when Prince changed his name to a symbol, customers had some pronunciation problems with this one. What probably seemed to someone like a really “cool” way to reach millennials instead just created customer confusion.
8. iBeat Blaxx
By far the worst name for a tech product. Or any product. Maybe ever. This is not a joke. A company really gave a product this name. You can read the company’s apology letter to Gizmodo here.
