Should Wordscraper have been named Melvin?
Techstuff Canada has a post that says the guys that created Scrabulous made a mistake when they renamed their game Wordscraper after the real Scrabble owner shut them down.
The posts states:
”I’ll add just one observation: I think Wordscraper is a terrible name. As John Dvorak observed recently on TWiT, newspapers loved this story because “Scrabulous” is a fun word.”
and goes on to say that:
I think the brothers could have bought themselves a lot of goodwill — and more positive press — if they had gone with a new name that’s more fun (and sillier) than Wordscraper. A name like Melvin, for example.
That’s a very good point. Good trade-marks or brands need to be memorable, not descriptive.
Unfortunately descriptive trade-marks are the first thing most people think of. The thought process is: “how else is anyone going to know what my brand/product/service is?” The right thought process is: “how can I make people remember my brand/product/service?”
