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Comment by pud | Hacker News Reader

According to the article, one of the reasons they changed the company name is because it was hard for people to understand the old name when spoken verbally.

Their new name seems to have the same problem.

For example:

Learndot: "Email me at paul-at-learn-dot-dot-com"

Customer: "learn dot com?"

Learndor "No, learn dot dot com"

Customer "???"

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Hey pud, OP here.

The thing is, we never say the domain. We say the name of the company. I totally agree that "Learn dot dot com" is confusing. But "Learn dot" isn't. Vast majority of people use Google to find things on the web (that was the theory). Last couple weeks of trying it out has backed that up.

I don't necessarily disagree, but remember that while you may be saying "learn dot," your users/customers are saying "Hey, you should check out learn dot dot com." You can train your team, but you can't train your customers.

In that case:

Learndot: "Our company is called learndot."

Customer: "Learn dot what?"

Learndot: "Learn dot nothing - that's the name of the company."

Customer: "Learn dot nothing?"

Learndot: "Well, dot com."

Customer: "Learn dot com? Why didn't you say that?"

Learndot: "No, it's learn dot dot com."

Customer: "Dot dot?"

Learndot: "No, the first dot is spelled dee-oh-tee."

Customer: "???"

I hope I'm not coming across as snarky. Naming isn't easy.

Fair enough - usually I just say "Learndot, dee oh tee" and it's no problem. Though I agree it's not perfect. The other factors balanced it out (spellability, MVP-ness and so forth).

You're right, naming is hard.

Pud is right. You would have been better off going to a naming company/consultant that does this as its trade, and also does the foreign language checks, trademark searches, and so forth. Most large companies outsource that sort of stuff because branding isn't their core competency. Sorry to be so blunt.

I understand that it may be difficult over the phone, but that would be just about the only confusing moment. Although considering they found your phone number, they already know your name. If they find it on the internet your SEO rating is helped by the name a little. If you are talking to them in person, they will have your card in hand or some visual. Also, if they have confusion with the name, you have an excuse to hand it to them. I no issues with this name.

This was my first thought exactly. They went from a name that was difficult for people to spell/pronounce correctly to one that is confusing in the context of the web. I'm not sure which is worse to be honest. After hearing the new name verbally people may either; type in "learn." into Google which I doubt they will be the first result, or be left waiting for the "com" part and still not have the right idea.

Same thoughts here on the web context of dot spelled out. However, that is an easier hurdle to overcome than the difficult pronunciation/spelling of your former name, as long as you write it as "Learndot" instead of "Learn." Once people learn the d-o-t the first time (no pun intended), they shouldn't have trouble with it going forward.

We went through similar issues in our rebranding, with both a dot and pronounceability (D.NEA). In our case, the '.' is not spelled out, and the domain works with or without it (d.neadiamonds.com). Being primarily internet based, most people don't need to pronounce it, they just follow a link or search for the name. If we talk to them, they'll hear us say it when answering the phone, but we aren't too concerned with how people pronounce it. After five years of using this name, most people get it close enough.

Learndot looks to be an overall better name than Matygo.

Google has applied for the ".dot" top-level domain: http://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationst...

So, eventually, getting http://learn.dot might be possible...

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