Sunday, October 19, 2008

Tasty Tidbits from the past week...

Choking Hazard

Sometimes we find juicy news not worthy of a full blog post, yet too darn good to not share with you. These "Tasty Tidbits" are digestible bites of news about new names and the naming industry and what we think of them here at Eat My Words. Bon Appetit!

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Scary name for new roller coaster - The North Carolina State Fair's Toxicshocknewest roller coaster has been named "Toxic Shock," as a result of a naming contest. We are not big fans of naming contests and this is just another example of you get what you pay for. We are not sure of the connection between a roller coaster and a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection that has been most often associated with the use of superabsorbent tampons and occasionally with the use of contraceptive sponges. However, it is better than the two runner-up names, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Necrotizing fasciitis.

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Death Doesn't Sell - There is a movement afoot in Israel to change the name of The Dead Sea because as one business owner says "our clients from abroad are uncomfortable buying products that have originated in a place whose name is associated with death. It's problematic." They have not offered any alternatives, but we think any change to such a historical name with eons of brand equity and a rich reputation for its health benefits would be misplaced and would undoubtedly end up sounding silly.

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Company wins rights to sewage facility - T. Wayne Hill Trucking, a bio-solids (nice word for you know what) management company, had the winning bid of $6,100 out of 26 bids on eBay for the naming rights to a school's new sewage plant. We can't wait for the sign. The company logo is of a smiley face holding it's nose. We think it was a brilliant marketing move.

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We bet the real "Joe the Plumber" is getting a lot of hits on his website.

Joetheplumber

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Father names baby without mother's consent, may be dumbest man ever.

McCain Palin

Here it is...Sarah McCain Palin. The father, Mark Citpak, did it "to get the word out" about the campaign. He goes on to say, "I took one for the cause, I can't give a lot of financial support for the (McCain/Palin) campaign. I do have a sign up in my yard, but I can do very little." Finally, in a statement that will seal his fate “I sort of secretively went behind her back and changed the paperwork.”

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Here is the Namethis.com lame name of the week:

This week we have another tie:

For "a mobile application and associated web site for quickly sharing your life with friends. Initially this will be sharing photos ."

The winner is Manifestivity.com The client has not snapped this winner up as of 11:15AM 10-19-08

For "a free service where you can find, share, and store recommendations easily and privately with the people you trust- See instantly what your friends have already recommended (no more wading through past emails to find stuff)"

**preference for domain names that are short, can’t be misspelled, random words that don’t mean anything are ok too

The winner is Ourpinionis.com. The client has not snapped this winner up as of 11:15AM 10-17-08

Prior week's winners, Pixelouvre.com, Mevolutionfitness.com and Communinnty.com are all also still available.

So this crowdsourcing thing is not really working out for their clients. If these names are indicative of the ones rising to the top, there is something definitely broken in their methodology. At least that ourpinionis.

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