[Web4lib] What's in a name (Google Book Search, that is)?

[Walt.Crawford at rlg.org]

I had nothing to do with naming RedLightGreen--but like "Google" itself, it
implies nothing or nearly nothing about what the service is or does.
Neither do "Yahoo!" or "Eureka" for that matter. None of them carry
descriptive implications--but that also means none of them carry
*misleading* implications.

I'm not saying all product and service names should be descriptive; that
would be silly.

What I am saying is that, when a product name *is* descriptive, it makes
sense to call it by that descriptive name rather than by a different, less
descriptive, name that the provider of the service doesn't use.

And, for the record, no personal rudeness was meant (or, I believe,
present) in my previous comment.

But then, I also haven't been telling people to "shut your piehole," so
it's likely that I'm being rude when I'm not aware of it, unlike the
kinder, gentler, more sensitive souls around here.

Walt Crawford
wcc at rlg.org, 650-691-2227
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web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org wrote on 11/23/2005 12:18:42 PM:

> > This doesn't strike me as rocket science--rather as a rudimentary
> > awareness
> > of the nuances of the English language.
>
> Well, it's a nuance clearly beyond my abilities. I'm tearing up my
diplomas,
> right now! BAD girl! No pumpkin pie until I dumb down, I mean diagram,
ten
> sentences (which I will find through Amazon's "Search Inside the Book
> Search," if I don't first use "Google Search")! By the way, Walt, how ARE
> things going with "RedLightGreen Search"?
>
> Speaking of search engines, in a report dated 11/27/2005 (!), Pew reports
> that since 2004, "use of search engines on a typical day has jumped from
30%
> to 41% of the internet-using population." The report also notes that 9
out
> of 10 dentists, I mean internet-users, use search engines. (But do choosy
> mothers choose Google?)
>
> http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/167/source/rss/report_display.asp
>
> Karen G. Schneider-Search
> kgs at bluehighways.com
>
>
>
>
>
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