The Search Engine Formerly Known as Roogle Comes Up With a New Name
Dave Aiello wrote, "I'm a little out of the loop on this, but, I am asking myself why Scott Johnson changed the name of his RSS Search engine to Feedster from Roogle? What's the difference? Wouldn't a name like Feedster also set off alarm bells in some Intellectual Property circles?"
"Prior to Feedster, there was Napster, Aimster, Madster, and several others. Most of these were peer-to-peer file sharing communities that were subject to intense litigation. Why would anyone want to take the risk of being lumped in with that sort of site?"
"I think that there is some risk of confusion and a somewhat higher risk of building a brand that is impaired from the outset. What do I mean by confusion? Well, the Feedster home page doesn't even say that the site is an RSS search engine anymore."
Update by Dave Aiello, 2:52pm: I noticed that the title tag says "RSS Search Engine", but it's not visible in the body of the page. Where's Jakob Nielsen when we need him?
"Scott spoke about the futility of corporate naming exercises on his weblog:"
... I think everyone would rather have us making you the best possible RSS search engine NOT doing the corporate naming exercise.
"I would have picked a name that either described an RSS search engine in no uncertain terms, or, one which is as unique today as Google was when it went live on the Internet."