Let us know how it goes

Virginia DeBolt — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 07:27:27 -0600

Let us know how it goes if you make the change. I made a similar mistake because I was determined to have the name Web Teacher. Fear of losing comments and other forms of inertia have kept me from choosing something more useful. Like you, I need to do something different.

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

New Year. Time for a new name?

Elana Centor — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 06:55:22 -0600

AOL did it this year. So did Hershey's. According to the Strategic Name Development Blog, over 1,000 businesses in the U.S. changed their names in 2006.

Is 2007 my year for a name change?

There was a time when business names were sacrosanct. When Nissan announced in the early 80s that they were going to change the name of DATSUN to Nissan they spent over 500 million dollars and took three years tomake the transition.

Today, some companies change their names quicker than people go through a box of Kleenex.

Turns out FunnyBusiness, a name I was very committed to, is not so great a name. It's got problems. Lots of problems.

I've been blogging under the name FunnyBusiness since 2004. Recently, another group of bloggers launched Funny Business.

I noticed them a couple of weeks ago and then again this week when I submitted FunnyBusiness to the Squidoo Z-List (there are a bunch of Bloghers on the list, check it out and vote often!)
There they were. Funny Business.

As Seth Godin reminded me in an email, I didn't do a very good job of selecting an original name for my blog.

He didn't say this, but it serves me right. I have no one to blame but myself for the potential confusion that these similar names are creating.

The question I have is, "Was that the intent of the new Funny Business bloggers? Do they want to cause confusion?"
Surely, they checked out my blog. They are marketing consultants and writers, afterall.

Two years ago,Weblo Tools Collection asked bloggers to share how they got their name. Nearly 100 people shared. Many had a starter name and then landed in a more permanent relationship.

Christine said,

My original site was blahblahblog.com - but it was hard to say out loud. After attending SXSW and having to say it hundreds of times, I felt the need for a change. I was in Starbucks, amused that they had a cookie named â€œBig Pink Cookieâ€ and â€¦ registered the URL that afternoon. It makes me laugh, itâ€™s easy to spell, and it is more fun to say than blahblahblog. (Plus at our wedding, we had Big Pink Cookies (from Starbucks) for the groomâ€™s cake!)

Should FunnyBusiness be my starter name ? Long before I started my blog, I wanted to syndicate a business column that I wrote for a newspaper in Minneapolis. I created a website and wanted to use the URL www.funnybusiness.com
Turns out a Bob Goldman, who writes a syndicated column called WORK DAZE already owned that URL.
I contacted Goldman about buying the URL. He offered to sell, I thought the price was too high. First Mistake.

Fast Forward a couple of years and I decided to start the blog. I checked in to see what Mr.Goldman was up to. His website had not been updated in a couple of years so I decided to call my blog FunnyBusiness. Second Mistake.

Goldman is now blogging but even though the URL is funnybusiness, the blog is called Work Daze.

If you subscribe to the three strikes and you are out theory of life,it may be time to put Elana's FunnyBusiness to pasture and resurrect with a name that is not quite so vanilla.

Between Goldman, The boys who just launched Funny Business and myself, it looks like the joke's on me.

Only thing is,it doesn't feel very funny.

For the time being, Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness

Image Credit: Flickr Word Art

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Let us know how it goes

New Year. Time for a new name?