Archive for May, 2006

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Trends in Web 2.0 Names

Wednesday, May 10th, 2006

The net has been about too long for people to be able to get the domain names they want. Everything in the dictionary has long been registered.

The best names are

  • Short
  • Memorable
  • Unique (it’s kinda handy when searching for your own name on google and knowing that every reference to monkeyspokz exists because of your site.)

    Hence all these web 2.0 start-ups have to play about with misspelling ordinary words.

    Examples

  • Flickr – Remove the last vowel
  • Digg – Double up the final consonant
  • Vimeo – Replacing a middle consonant to possibly do a joke on ‘putting the me in video’
  • Zooomr – oo = ooo AND removing the last vowel. This is just taking the piss.
  • Del.icio.us – Abusing TLDs to create words. Personally I think this is a bit sh.it

    Possible future trends?

  • Ck = q – Fliqr, Fuqr, nicewheatherforduqs
  • 3 = e – Well, we did it on B3ta 5 years ago. Maybe it’ll catch on eventually.
  • Er… Reallyreallylongnamesthatbuckthetrend?

    Anyway. I’ve dashed out a quick Web 2.0 Namr to illustrate some of these points. Rah.

    • Posted in I've made a thing | 10 Comments »

    Sickipedia

    Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006

    Sickipedia logo

    Yay. I’ve just launched sickipedia

    It exists for the following reasons:

  • Once I thought of the crappy sickipedia / wikipedia pun I couldn’t resist it
  • I closed the QOTW on B3ta and got lots of email going, “please keep it open, we love reading and adding jokes”
  • However, the list has become huge and unmanageable with gazillions of duplicates
  • I’ve never run a public wiki before and I’m interested to see how it goes
  • Assuming the book gets even a small bit of attention, then a lot of people will be emailing me jokes. I’d rather direct them to a website where they can sort it out themselves.
  • I fancied re-drawing the Wikipedia logo with extra cocks
  • I imagine we’re going to get a lot of vandalism, but hopefully it’ll all work out ok in the end. Anyway. Have fun you crazy kids.

    • Posted in I've made a thing, sickipedia | 2 Comments »

    ‘How to be funny’ – Look mum! I write for the BBC now!

    Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006

    The Beeb have launched a new comedy website, the idea is to get people creating funny stuff via the interwebs and the best stuff might end up as TV show.

    They very nicely showered me with cash to write some tips.

    King of Chavs TV Titles

    And in other news, the Keith Allen documentary on Michael Carroll was broadcast on Channel 4 the other day. I did the titles, which you can watch here. WARNING: Contains loud swearing.

    Posted in I've made a thing, TV Graphics, article, commercial job | 3 Comments »

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