Clever Names Aren’t Always a Good Thing | Hacker News Reader

Clever Names Aren’t Always a Good Thing

usersinhell.com

111 pointsphillco72 comments

I'm a co-founder of Ninite. We hear this a lot, but I don't think it's a big deal. Traffic has been growing well since we launched and we install 1,000,000 apps every week now.

The real problem is that there's not really a term for what we do. The key part in all these stories is that even searching for us is hard. We're doing something totally new so we might as well call it something totally new.

I'm also just aesthetically opposed to descriptive names.

The other part of this is that we made the product so lightweight that it goes away after you use it. This is one of the reasons people love it, but it does hurt retention.

I think we got this choice right though. It's way more important for people to love your product than awkwardly hook them somehow. If they love the product they'll get back to you.

That said, we have just released an auto-updater product that helps solve this retention issue in a natural way. https://ninite.com/updater/

It will be interesting to see if that reduces these complaints about Ninite being hard to find and remember.

This is almost like Oracle support telling me "There is no problem" after I call them about my database corruption.

The author, who obviously loves your software, couldn't find you enough times that he wrote a blog post about it. There are several reddit thread about this issue. Several replies to this thread express the same frustration - they can't find your software when they know it exists and want to use it. You hear it a lot yourself too.

But still you don't think its a big deal. I'm wondering what kind of evidence will convince you its a big deal.

It sounds like awesome software. I'm glad I've heard of it. I just hope I'll remember the name when I'll need it.

Oops, I didn't mean to come off as saying that the author's problem isn't real. I understand where he's coming from and we hear similar things from a lot of users.

But, there's not a good solution available so I don't really worry about it day to day.

We're not going to change the name at this point, and I think people have started to see us enough that its becoming less and less of a problem.

Actually, lots of people do remember the name. Our top 26 searches to find the site are variations or misspellings on the name. 27 is "install multiple programs" and then we're back to the name until "multi installer" at 40. We got a quarter million visits last month from people typing ninite or ninite.com into google.

I also don't think founders of new startups should fret too much over naming. Just make something great, release it, and improve it. The catchiest name in the world won't save a bad product. Product is the high bit here, naming is lower than you'd think.

For some reason Ninite sounds very familiar to me, so it's easy to remember...

You might be right - but you can't logically draw the conclusion that 'lots of people remember the name' based on the evidence presented.

The is no correlation between words people end up reaching your site by, and words that they are trying to find your site by.

Consider the world where 10M people are trying to find Ninite, but forget the name and unsuccessfully google "keep multiple programs up to date". Similarly, 1M people google for some variation of Ninite, and all find your site. Your referrer logs would show that all users reaching your site remembered your name, even though you're throwing away 90% of your potential user base.

That's like trying to disprove the hypothesis: "You don't network enough, so not enough people know you" with the evidence "99% of the calls I get are from people that know me, so clearly a lot of people know me".

No good solution available? You state that you are not going to use the best available good solution - a memorable name. That's very different. Consider branding the product with two names? Coming up with a version name that is memorable? Doing some SOE that works? Throwing away customers because you have enough - nice to be in that boat.

I think the reason for your success is that Ninite is simply an excellent product. If your product is truly great, it'll usually overcome problems in naming, promotion, design, etc. (I remember there was a Joel on Software post about how Naptster's UI design was terrible, but it didn't matter, because it was Napster). But, we'll never know how successful Ninite could have been had it been easier to remember.

Of out curiosity, how did you come up with the name? EDIT: Ah. http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

I bet we'd be exactly as successful with a better name. Are there examples of products where an awesome name made them into successes? Or even had a significant impact?

I'm sure you could tank a product with an offensive name or something that required weird unicode characters. But I think it's only worth getting a passing grade on the name and then going for an A+ on the product.

I guess the argument is that if you're right on the margin a better name could tip you into winning. But I'd already consider a product a failure if it only gets to that middle ground on its own. If the name makes a difference I'd say you're not working on the right sort of problem.

It does make a difference for people: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2007...

My hunch is that it also makes a difference for products, but I don't have any data on that...

> Are there examples of products where an awesome name made them into successes? Or even had a significant impact?

YouTube. What differentiated YouTube from all the other video sharing sites? A good name and logo.

I've got a hunch that there was a little more to it than just "a good name and logo."

For one, they tried hard to support every possible video format for upload (as opposed to, e.g., Google Video, which was much pickier about what it would accept). In general, they nailed the "just make it work" factor.

(Subjectively, I remember YouTube being the first site that made me think, "wow! video on the internet! it works!". Ironically enough, this is no longer really true -- half the time YT starts buffering part way through the video (sometimes never to go finish w/o a full page refresh), & the other half the time you get a disruptive pop-up covering 20% of the screen. Bah.)

For any product, the name is part of the "user story", although to a wildly different degree. In your case, the user story starts with "Joe finds and downloads your software". And the argument here, really, is how effectively "Ninite" as a name serves that part of the story.

The linked post seems to think it fails that step. You disagree.

I am not offering a conclusion to that argument, but just wanted to position the name debate in a less vague way.

I believe DailyBurn used to be called Gyminee until A/B testing showed a significant difference in conversion rate.

Pepsi Max built a whole market out of guys who didn't want to be seen asking for a "diet" soda.

From your linked article:

Naming is easy.

I think that statement is rather ironic, given the nature of this submission.

I think it's less of a name issue, and more of a customer engagement issue. If your customers can't remember your name, you're not talking to them enough. Doesn't matter how light weight your app is.

Having said that, I'm not sure why the OP wouldn't just google "automated setup tool"....

We operate under the assumption that our customers don't want to be "engaged" or talked to.

People use Ninite to get apps installed quickly and without any hassle.

That's it.

They don't use it because they need a new friend, or want to be marketed to, or don't get enough email, or want to see some ads, or want to create another account somewhere on the internet. So we don't have any of that.

Our pages/visit in Google Analytics is 2.00. The main page then the installer download page. We've got other pages, but they are literally a rounding error.

I'm always going to remember the name now that I read an article using it as an example of a bad name. It doesn't stand out to me as a terrible name, not worse than many others that bear no relation to their functions.

It sounds like a great product. I've wondered a solution for the lack of a package repository for common Windows programs.

I think that there's something more going on than a simple naming issue over here.

As a product you're exactly in the right place to be. You see, your product isn't something "cool" that people should use. It's now a fact of life. It's an extension of your users environment. This means that they take it for granted, because they just can't imagine life without it.

That's an amazing position to be in for a product. Think about it. When was the last time you thought, "hey I'm going to send you a messing using an electronic messaging system that allows me to send files and store things on a server!" You just say, "I'll drop you a line". You don't even need to talk about the technology over here! Email has become just another fact of life.

Some technologies become so ingrained into your life, that they are the technological equivalent of drinking water. It's something completely natural that you will never think twice about.

This means if you play your cards well, you're here to stay...

Thanks, this is a really great compliment.

One of my favorite things about Ninite is that we get thank you letters from grandmothers who hear about us on the local news and orders from Fortune 500 companies for the same basic product.

That's the funny thing. It isn't praise for your product. It's just what your product has become. Who knows if it will stay that way, but what it is right now is something simply beautiful. You know I would just love to talk more with you about your product. Is there someway I can email you?

Sure, I'm pat@ninite.com

> I'm also just aesthetically opposed to descriptive names.

In your case, I think a coined name is OK because any alternative that I can think of--like "Multi Product Installer"--sounds horribly generic. Multi Product Installer is no easier to remember than Automated Setup Utility, or Quick Choice and Download, or whatever.

By I do think that for a fast-moving market, a descriptive name (or at least a memorable one) is pretty important. Movies are great example of this. I'm convinced that some really good movies that have done badly at the box office failed because of the their names.

Two examples that come to mind are "Waking Ned Devine" and "ffolkes". You get no clue what the movies are about from these titles. Are they comedies or action movies? Who knows. It would be so much better for these films to have been called, say, "Get the Dead Guy's Fortune" and "North Sea Hijack", respectively.

I've personally chosen movies to watch based solely on the title (when the film I came to actually see was sold out, for example), so there's no denying that it can have a big effect when you need to make choices quickly. In this respect, "Facebook" makes sense, especially in a super-fast arena like social media software.

"Google", by the way, is not a counter-example to my point because the name is memorable (by association with googol) to techie people who would have been the early users.

I remember when you guys were baseshield... ninite could mean like (nigh-night) as in good night.."say good night to your installation problems"

Hey swies, I have some tangentially related feedback. I've always had ninite.com bookmarked since I found it, and the other day I was going through and sorting my bookmarks; when ninite.com loaded, I was immediately thrown off. From what I recall, the site's design used to be dark and looked very simple and professional to me; as soon as I saw this light-blue design with the "Featured in..." on the right, I thought "oh, no, the site was sold and became some park domain from the 90s...". It's weird, after that initial reaction, as soon as I read anything on the page, it was clear that everything was normal; the more I look at the design, the more I think everything looks fine and there's nothing bad about the design. But I definitely had that reaction and almost turned away from the site on the quick, and thought that feedback might be useful. At the very least, I think you should consider redesigning how the "Featured in..." is displayed; when it's a bunch of logos as one .png, it looks like a big ad and is a big turnoff until you notice what it's saying. I think something laid out more dynamically than within a box that stands out from the rest of the background would do a lot of good.

Thanks for the feedback. The lighter designs we've been using lately are much more readable (they've pretty much eliminated common questions about things we already say on the homepage). That block of logos is just temporary, we just put the current design up a week ago and haven't had much time to iterate on it yet.

The real problem is that there's not really a term for what we do.

Package Manager (or Software Manager)? Seems like a Windows analog to Apt. Googling windows package manager leads me to something called Npackd that looks similar to your tool (though it is quite ugly/complex looking) at at glance.

I've had they same issue with Ninite, actually.

I'm agnostic on whether it needs a different name. For a use-once-in-a-blue-moon product which fixes an immediate need, it probably needs better SEO. The simplest baby step is to write ten or twenty pages about pain points and how Ninite fixes them.

We could probably use more SEO, but we're actively fighting that once in a blue moon use reputation.

We're working to position Ninite as a great general download site and our new Ninite updater should help repeat use. Even with a single app, clicking next next next through an installer is silly. Our paid users end up using Ninite daily at their work already.

A big issue with SEO for us is that normal users don't even imagine that what Ninite does is possible. I think some mix of education and oblique SEO could help, but I think the newness of what we do complicates things a lot.

We aren't hurting for traffic, but it's primarily word of mouth and press so far.

I see where you're going, but I'm not sure how successful you'll be.

Me? I'd go big with something memorable. Think something like Hudson's approach. I was thinking a mascot with an easier name to remember: maybe a cute dog (Lassie! Install!). A robot might make more sense given the theme. Hey! Maybe a robot dog! I bet you could own the search [robot dog installer] even if you picked (another) unmemorable name for the dog.

I just recently rebuilt my workstation and wanted to use Ninite but I couldn't remember the name and couldn't find it via search. This is the second time that's happened, although the first time was before the name change, so I don't really count it. (Although now that I think of it, I can't recall the original name either.)

We used to be Volery at getvolery.com but pg advised us to change that since Dropbox had such a hard time eventually getting dropbox.com.

That makes sense. I think the reason I can't remember the name is that it has no real connection to what I'm trying to accomplish. I think Ninite is fine for a company name, but maybe you could use a product name or something to more firmly establish the connection between the name of your product and what it does.

I've suffered the exact same inability to remember the name Ninite.

After a while, the name finally stuck, but I've had multiple "scramble around on Google trying to find it again" incidents, as the author described.

Though recently, I got myself a Pinboard account, and now I ruthlessly tag and bag any site/tool I might want to find again.

I remember reading somewhere that the name "Ninite" actually was generated by a script which checked for available .com domains.

Found it: http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

It's funny, since Ninite ran a very elaborate process to find that very name:

http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

To me it seems like nailing the perfect 2nd level .com domain isn't as important as before. How often does the average user type a URL directly, rather than typing key words into a Google search field?

I have this problem with nearly every startup mentioned on HN -- it's not that some of them don't have good names -- there's just too many of them. Then, when I have the actual problem that I saw the solution for, they have no SEO yet, so I can't find them by description.

The best solution for this is what Hipmunk is doing -- no way I'd remember it except -- they buy lots of remarketing style ads. I clicked through to the site the first time I heard about it, and I get tons of ads for it all of the time everywhere -- I remember it now.

Don't forget the mascot ;) we're the travel search that's chipmunk without the "C."

"For travel search without the hassle, try chipmunk without the c".

It's so cheesy, it works!

My mother actually asked on Facebook last whek whether someone remembered the name of a flight search that had some cute mascot :P and yes, the 2nd reply gave her the name "hipmunk" :) so the mascot does help with remembering.

(I'll update with the actual post, but Facebook is banned at work)

Until I read the post about how the name was selected from a list of computer-generated options, I (and apparently a few others here) thought it was a play off of, "ni' night." This made sense to me: you start Ninite to do unattended installs and then head off to bed.

Regardless, I think the name is actually pretty good. The issue for me is that the site has so little branding and personality to it that nothing reinforces the name. It's great that it gets you to the functionality right away, but I think you can preserve that quality and add some branding elements that reinforce the name.

Two ideas jump immediately to mind. The first is to play off, "ni' night," and use a darkened children's room, the night sky, or a children's bedtime book theme. You could add a dark background with a memorable graphical element such as a poster bed or the moon. The second is to conceive of "Ninite" as some sort of cool new chemical element -- a laboratory, the periodic table, or chemical structure diagrams could serve as themes.

Regardless, I'd move "Featured In" to be a horizontal set of badges below the screenshot and place a large logotype to the left of the screenshot with the tagline, "The Easiest, Fastest Way to Update and Install Software."

These are nice ideas, thanks for the feedback. The chemical element angle is one I definitely thought about when we first looked at the name.

The "ni' night" imagery doesn't really work if the official pronunciation is "NIN-ite", not "NI-nite".

I had assumed the name was "NINE-ite" until I read the Ninite blog:

http://blog.ninite.com/post/620277259/how-ninite-was-named-b...

Adding to the thread, anyone that needs to deal with Windows XP or Windows Vista installs, nLite[1] and vLite[2] are in this same vein, but help you build custom installs. (Also forgotten this one about once a year).

[1] http://www.nliteos.com/ [2] http://www.vlite.net/

We geeks seem to have a fixation on clever names. I loved the name "Froogle", but Google made a wise move in changing it to "Google Product Search" (much friendlier to its target users).

Speaking of which, Google's own name was a particularly geeky choice. I wonder if their users had a hard time remembering what it was or typing it in back in Google's early days.

I'm not immune to geeky name choices myself. I chose "Debonware" as a website name a few years back. (It was a lame play on words on "debonair" and "software".) I later abandoned it and switched to "Domador Software". That's still a bit iffy, and not as memorable to English speakers as it would be to Spanish speakers. However, I called my main product "Two-Click Reminder", which is mostly descriptive, not very clever, yet should be much easier for users to remember and be able to search for later on.

If you can't remember the name, then it's not clever.

PS: I believe only "lifestyle" products can get away with that kind of fantasy name. Things that impact and change significantly the way you do something that you do often.

'If you can't remember the name, then it's not clever.' Agreed 100%. Now it's likely too late but wouldn't batchsetup.com be easier and not so generic (edit:available for registration as time of posting)?

That isn't a clever name. It's a bad name.

At first, I agree. But then I look at my running programs: emacs, Steam, Safari, Python, Clojure, along with the more descriptive Finder, iChat, iTerm2, Mail. Somehow, I think the problem has more to do with how obtrusive or how much interaction you have with a program rather than the name.

What would you call Ninite?

> What would you call Ninite?

install-in-one

> What would you call Ninite?

install-them-all

Or go with what people are already searching for :

install-multiple-programs

Onestall.

Um, I'd call it a package manager.

> What would you call Ninite?

I would prefer Installware as its business friendly (installware.com is available for $7500), not sure if it infringes the existing name InstallAware though! ... If you cannot spend that much then TurboInstall is good too and the domain turboinstall.com is available for $50

Also i would listen to patio's advice and focus on SEO. You can write atleast 30 quality articles in this area

As the proprietor of http://cleverna.me, I can confirm this. No-one reads my blog. At least, anyone who does isn't pulling down the analytics script.

You should do better analytics; combine server access logs with analytics script to determine your script and non-script audience.

There is no wikipedia article on the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon for some reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_(disambiguation)

Does anyone know enough on the subject to create one? I had to read up on it here

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon...

But not sure how reliable the article is.

The problem with regards to names is simply overrated. I personally have 000fff.org (Black&White) and I have no problem attracting visitors.

People click links, most only click one time in their life and never get back. For those who end up using it they will take the time to either bookmark it the browsers history will most often be enough. Would it be better with an easy to decipher name? Sure. But it's not a law.

Good product is what matter.

I always remember it as "night night".. "ni' night"

For me it's sixth in the google search results for "automated setup tool." I don't see the problem.

The last paragraph of the post acknowledges that, and points out the problem: "Nowadays, Ninite finally shows up on the front page on Google for “automated software install”, so the problem’s fading away for them. But in your early days of your project, you’re not going to have a good search engine ranking to rely on, and you’ll want to keep as many of your early adopters as you can. Name your software appropriately."

6th? So that's probably a click through rate of 2% for people who search for that term. That's kinda crap.

I feel the same way about Web 2.0 names with trendy dropped vowels. Bnter, for example - is it bantr? bntr? banter? These brands provide great fodder for typosquatters, I'm sure.

Why not apply the lessons of the netflix prize to this problem? Create a contest to produce a site that provides the most referrer traffic to your product.

I solve this problem by bookmarking the website and putting some keywords, like "automated software install", in the description.

Which, of course, works better if the tool in question isn't usually used to install useful things on a new machine that doesn't yet have useful things on it -- browsers and bookmarks, for example. :-)

FWIW, I have also forgotten "Ninite" on more than one occasion, but I think it's the only tool I routinely use where I have repeatedly forgotten the name. Maybe there is something about that particular name that makes it hard to remember, rather than a general problem with any unusual name?

Which is why you should keep your bookmarks in the cloud :)

I used Ninite today on a new computer, remembered it off the top of my head without issue. Keep up the great work guys :)

VLC is another tool I had trouble memorizing the name of. "VideoLAN? That must be something different..."

However, you can google video orange cone and find it

downloadmultipleappsatonce.com is available. I think the larger issue here is search engine visibility. Although I'm not sure what the big fuss is- he described the site to someone and got a quick answer. Isn't how you usually find lost stuff?

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