Fritinancy

New Name Beat: Cuil

"Queel"? "Quill"? "Coo-ill"? No, no, and no. The name of the new search engine Cuil, which launched yesterday, is pronounced "cool." Why? Well, because they say so. And when you're challenging Google and calling yourself "the world's biggest search engine," brashness is everything.

Here's what Cuil says about itself on the home page:

The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up—until now. Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.

Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency.

Then we offer you helpful choices and suggestions until you find the page you want and that you know is out there. We believe that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach, so we don’t collect data about you and your habits, lest we are tempted to peek. With Cuil, your search history is always private.

Cuil is based in Menlo Park, California; it was founded by a married couple, Tom Costello and Anna Patterson, both of whom have PhDs in computer science. He's an I.B.M alum who specializes in text relevance for searches; she's an expert in scaling architecture who wrote a search engine that she sold to Google, where she worked from 2004 to 2006. All very impressive--as is the fact that the site was launched on a paltry $7 million budget.

New Name Beat: Knol

Google was in the news last week (is there ever a week when Google is not in the news?) after the company's blog announced the quiet launch of a new, Wikipedia-like project called Knol. Unlike Wikipedia, whose contributors are anonymous (and their authority unknown to readers), Knol will "highlight authors," according to Google's vice president of engineering, Udi Manber:

Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

There's no Knol logo yet, and only one sample page to view, but less than two days after Manber published his post a Knol social-networking community, "KnolStuff," had miraculously materialized.

All very interesting, of course. But what about the name?

In his blog post, Manber defines knol as "a unit of knowledge." He consistently spells the word with a lower-case k, and writes that "we use the word 'knol' as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably." Outside Google, however, commenters have capitalized the name.

So--spelling: variable. What about pronunciation?

Motley Fool punned about "grassy knol" (that's a JFK-assassination reference, in case you didn't recognize it) and proposed the term "Knol troll" "for the money-chasing types who will plague the site if Google winds up encouraging mutinous behavior." Both usages suggest a long-vowel pronunication, as does the example of two other English words that end in -ol: extol and control.

But if knol is short for knowledge, it would logically require a short vowel sound. And there are several examples in English of words that end in -ol in which the o is short: protocol, parasol, alcohol. Note that all of them are three syllables long, with the stress on the first syllable. The one-syllable knol--pronounced to rhyme more or less with doll--follows a less familiar model. (Doubling the l might or might not help: -oll can be pronounced with either vowel sound.)

(William Lozito of NameWire argues that Knol is too close to "nul," meaning "nothing."  Actually, nul is a Latin term, pronounced with a long u; the English equivalent is null.)

That's one pronunciation challenge. The other is the initial k, which is presumably silent. I've considered the problem of the initial silent k in my earlier analysis of Knuru (coined from knowledge + guru). Yes, many familiar words have a silent k--knife, knight, knee, knit--but when we encounter a coined kn- word we hesitate slightly. Could it be pronounced ka-nawl? Or ka-nole?

(I noticed another silent-k coined name last year, social-networking site that called itself Knover, coined from knowledge + rover. Again, the pronunciation was not quite intuitive. In any event, Knover seems to have come and gone within about 12 months: enter knover.com and you're redirected to something called FreshNotes.)

Google's new Knol is confusing legally, too. There's the much-better-known Knoll, the global, 70-year-old office-furniture manufacturer whose name rhymes with roll. And there's Knology (ticker symbol: KNOL), a 13-year-old cable company that serves the southeastern United States.

Finally, I'm not convinced that "Knol" clearly communicates "knowledge." There's that missing w, for starters. Without it, the word can look like knot or knoll to the casual reader.

That's a lot of encumbrances for one very short name.

Google could have made it work, to borrow a Project Runway catchphrase. Spelling the word Knole would have clarified that the vowel is meant to be long; spelling it Gnol would have retained the G-for-Google branding element while keeping the sense of to know (as in agnostic--admittedly a more arcane connection). Knowl is another option.

Or Google could have adhered to its established naming conventions (Gmail, Google Maps, etc.) and gone with a more straightforward name such as Gpedia, GoogleWise, Google Knowledge, or Googlepedia. Too boring? How about Gooru? Or TheKnow? Or even Ken, a wonderful old English word that means "perception" or "understanding" and is easy to anthropomorphize?

Read other posts in New Name Beat.

New Name Beat: Cision

In April the global "reputation management" company Observer Group changed its name to Cision. If Observer Group doesn't mean much to you, perhaps you're more familiar with one of its subsidiaries, Bacon's Information, which since 1932--and especially since its 2002 acquisition of MediaMap--has been an important source of information for public-relations practitioners, who rely on the company's database of more than 900,000 media contacts in 150 countries. Along with the rest of Observer Group, Bacon's is now Cision. In this installment of New Name Beat, I'll discuss the new Cision name generally, with a focus on the Bacon's transformation.

Observer Group, founded a century ago in Sweden, has offices throughout Europe and North America; its services include research and media monitoring. The global firm calls itself the largest media company in the world.

Founded in Chicago in 1932, Bacon's appears to have been named for its founder (I was unable to verify this through an online search). The surname Bacon has old Anglo-Saxon roots and many well-known family-tree members, from Francis to Kevin. In sound and associations, it's clear, down to earth, and approachable.

The Cision name is none of those things. It was developed by global branding agency Landor Associates, and it fits squarely within a certain segment of the Landor portfolio: classical-sounding coined names that require a bit (or a lot) of explanation. Other Landor names in this category include Lucent, Agilent, Accenture, and Centigon. Landor has also created some metaphorical real-word names, including Reveal, for the General Electric light bulb line.

What does Cision mean? Here's a quote from the Landor site:

"Cision suggests many ideas related to the Observer Group's offerings, linked to their global media intelligence network that helps clients make better 'decisions' while also providing "precision" in target audience identification and insights," said Ed Keller, Director for the Chicago office of Landor Associates. "The tagline, 'Media Intelligence. Communication Insights.' supports the idea that Cision is a partner that not only provides helpful media linkages, but brings thoughtful understanding and strategic insights to their clients' communication needs."

Aha: precision and decision. That explanation helps to clarify the word's pronunciation, which isn't as transparent as one might hope. "Cision" could be pronounced Sish-on, to rhyme with gone fishin'. The first i might be pronounced as a long vowel--Sigh-shun or SEIZE-zhun. Or the second i could be long--sis-EYE-on (as in anion, cation, Cis-ion). The word could be pronounced with two syllables (CI-zhun) or--especially among Spanish-speakers--three (SIS-see-on). When in Spain, would we say THEE-si-on or, more logically in Castilian, Thee-si-OAN?

When you know that Cision is a contraction of decision or precision, you can appreciate its positive associations. But that's a logical left-brain job. The right side of the brain hears the sound of the word as an extended hiss. And even a left-brainer can run into trouble, because -cision can end some not-so-positive words. An acquaintance of mine who works in PR told me, "After getting an invoice from them, one of my agency clients called them 'Incision: They Take a Deep Cut.'"

If we ourselves cut deeper into the structure of Cision, we discover that the cis- prefix has much independent meaning. In Latin, it means "on the same side [of]" or "on this side [of]"--the opposite of the trans- prefix. In chemistry, cis is a double bond in which the greater radical on both ends is on the same side of the bond. In genetics, cis- signifies the co-location of two or more genes on the same chromosome of a homologous pair. In geography, placenames beginning with Cis- convey "on this side of" (Cisjordan, during British Mandate years, meant "on this side of the Jordan River"). In astronomy, cislunar means "in the space between the Earth and the Moon." Cisgender and cissexual are the opposite of transgender and transsexual. And in music, cis means C-sharp.

(Source for the paragraph above is a Wikipedia entry; another entry provides a long list of CIS acronyms.)

That's interesting to those of us who like word puzzles. But in name development, etymology isn't as important as metaphors and associations. And where "Bacon's" conjured people--or food--"Cision" conjures ... well, nothing tangible. It's a cold wall of a name, faceless and emotionless. Yes, its obvious Latin roots make it suitable in theory for a global company. But when the business of that company is people and their stories, a name like Cision feels like the sharp blades of a scissors (a word that's a linguistic cousin) shearing off emotional connection at the root.

And the tagline? "Media Intelligence. Communications Insights" does a decent job of describing the conglomerate's functions. But it consists of four polysyllabic Latinate words that fail to take the chill off "Cision." In settling on this tagline, Observer Group and Landor missed an opportunity to balance an abstract corporate brand name with a bit of lyricism, wit, or plain English.

Read other posts in New Name Beat.

New Name Beat: 23andMe

If you're a sports fan or a celebrity watcher, you can be forgiven for expecting 23andMe to be a fan site about soccer megastar David Beckham. (He wears jersey #23 for his new team, the Los Angeles Galaxy.)

But 23andMe is something else entirely: the rare company that can speak with authority about its corporate DNA. For about $1,000, this new biotech startup will search your genome and create your personal genetic profile.* It takes its name from the 23 pairs of chromosomes in every human cell--and from its "genetics is about to get personal" assertion.

Perhaps you're wondering why the company isn't named 46andMe. Keep reading.

There's a lot of high-quality DNA in 23andMe's executive team. Co-founder Anne Wojcicki (pronounced wo-JIT-skee), a former health care analyst, married Google co-founder Sergey Brin in May in a secret ceremony on a private island in the Caribbean. The Brin-Wojcicki hookup had a genetic component of its own: the pair were introduced by Wojcicki's sister, now a Google vice president, who sublet her garage to Brin and his business partner, Larry Page, when they were starting Google. (Wojcicki's mother has also worked for Google, as a consultant.) Google has invested $3.9 million in 23andMe--pocket change for Brin and Page, but a big boost for the new company.

23andMe is an interesting name for a number of reasons. Let's start with the most salient: It's distinctive. Unlike a lot of new business names, it's not a meaningless coined word with some superfluous vowels (Orgoo, Squidoo, Meebo, etc.). It doesn't go steroidal with the overused -ster suffix (Friendster, Talkster, Dogster, Napster) or coyly drop a vowel (Flickr, Shifd, Wrickr, Pluggd). It doesn't have the contorted, constructed quality of many genomics firms: BioGenix, Cytomix, DigiGenomics, Xencor, Hypromatrix. Finally, it bucks the dominant "shorter is better" philosophy and dares to be five syllables long, although with only seven characters it appears shorter than it sounds.

23andMe is not alone among recent startups in using a numeral as part of its name. But it uses the number more cannily than most. Names such as 37Signals, 83 Degrees, and Core77 are mysterious to the point of meaninglessness, while 30Boxes (a calendar site), 411Metro, and Compass360--to take just three examples--are transparently obvious.

23andMe's name, however, is justifiable yet slightly enigmatic. The 23 "story" makes sense and reinforces the serious science behind the endeavor. Meanwhile, the rhyme between "three" and "me" adds a touch of lyrical whimsy while acting as a mnemonic device.

The more I thought about this name, the more it appealed to me. There was something about the number 23--something I couldn't quite identify--that made the name stand out. So I did some research and discovered that "23" is a number with a lot of stories to tell.

• Twenty-three is, of course, a prime number, divisible only by itself and by 1.
• It's the smallest prime number that isn't a twin prime.
• According to Wikipedia, "Twenty-three is also the fifth factorial prime, the second Woodall prime, and the second Smarandache-Wellin prime. It is an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form 3n − 1."
• Avogadro's number, used in chemistry, is 6.0221367×10²³.
• In Biblical Palestine, the Sanhedrin had 23 judges.
• In the absurdist, chaos-centered religion called Discordianism (sometimes called "Zen for roundeyes"), all events are connected to the number 23. The digits of "23" add up to 5, which also has special properties to Discordians. (There seems to be a strong whiff of selection bias in these claims.)
• In the 2007 film The Number 23, starring Jim Carrey, a man's life unravels after he reads a book titled "The Number 23."
• Twenty-three was basketball star Michael Jordan's number when he played for the Chicago Bulls. It has since been retired.
• According to an information-sharing company called simply 23--not as effective a name, in my opinion, as 23andMe--you need at least 23 people in a room for there to be a probability of 50% or greater that two of them will share a birthday.
• And 23 has many other associations.

Many numbers come down to us with purportedly magical qualities: three wishes, seven wonders of the world, forty days and forty nights. Twenty-three, though, is quirkier and rougher around the edges, less obvious and therefore more intriguing. It doesn't disclose its meaning at a glance: it draws you in and invites you to investigate further. Substituting "46" for "23" for reasons of scientific accuracy wouldn't have achieved the same numerical/associational magic.

Then there's the "...andMe" component of the name, which warms and humanizes it--and which is why I think 23andMe is a better name than simply 23. I also like that the company chose not to make the name possessive--for example, "My23"--which would have altered the relationship between "me" and "my DNA," which in "23andMe" sounds like an equal partnership.

Even if it had a terrible name, 23andMe would draw attention because of its lucky parentage. The interesting qualities of "23andMe" give it even more credibility. In other words, 23andMe represents the optimal blend of nature and nurture.

Read other posts in New Name Beat.

* Esther Dyson, who is a director of 23andMe, plans to post her genome on the Internet in a couple of months. Read her Wall Street Journal commentary about why she chose to do it.

New Name Beat: Thoof

A couple of weeks ago The Name Inspector wrote a brief post about Thoof, which he called "a name whose existence cannot go unremarked." He continued:

This is a name that defies criticism. It’s so intentionally meaningless and phonetically counterintuitive that it renders irrelevant any earnest discussion of its strengths and weaknesses. A commenter on TechCrunch said it sounds like a potato gun being shot. What more is there to say?

Very well put. But in fact there is a bit more to say.

First, some background: Thoof is a personalized news site created by its readers rather than by an editorial staff. The site's About page--which is well hidden--has this to say:

What makes Thoof unique is a sophisticated algorithm which discovers a reader's interests and tailors the stories to each reader's individual tastes. Every Thoof reader will see a personalized page with stories he or she will find interesting. All that you, as a reader, have to do is simply read what you like, and Thoof takes care of the rest!

And further down the page, there's this curious line:

The original Thoof concept is due to Ian Clarke.

I say "curious" because "due to" is an oddly passive way to express Mr. Clarke's relationship to the company. The very next sentence, in fact, says he is the founder and CEO of Thoof. Why not come out and say he "created the concept"?

It's not as though Clarke were an unknown quantity. Seven years ago, at 23, he created an anonymous information-sharing system called Freenet that drew considerable controversy. Since then he's been involved in three other venture-backed startups, including the video-sharing site Revver.

In his TechCrunch blog, Michael Arrington wrote about Thoof from a business perspective, but some of his commenters wanted to weigh in on the name. There was the potato-gun comment, for one. Another commenter observed sarcastically, "With a name like Thoof, how could it fail?" Said another: "The name is a deal-breaker. It may be the worst web 2.0 name yet. These goofy names may work for the technorati but I don’t think they scale. " And yet another put it tersely: "Name sucks, concept uninteresting."

Finally, at comment #27, Ian Clarke joined the conversation:

To those who don’t like the name, I guess all I can say is “sorry”. I think mostly names are defined by the companies that use them, rather than the companies being defined by the names. Consider the impact of “Yahoo!”, “Flickr”, “EBay”, or “Skype” before they became well known companies. I think most people probably viewed them as being rather strange, but now they are part of our language. I think if Thoof is a success, that will define people’s perception of the name, positive or negative.

So where did "Thoof" come from? In a June 17 interview with New York Times technology reporter John Markoff, Clarke said he "discovered" the name Thoof by writing a program to search for Internet addresses that had not been taken. And, Markoff reported, "he said he also liked that it rhymed with truth."

There are several naming and branding fallacies here. Let's look at three of them:

- "Thoof" rhymes with "truth."  Not in standard English, it doesn't. It rhymes with spoof, reproof, and oof!  In some British dialects (mostly lower class), -th- can sound like -f-  or -v-, but Clarke is Irish and presumably doesn't favor those pronunciations. (Irish -th- tends to sound more like hard -t-. I once had an Irish yoga instructor who would exhort us to "relax your ties!" It took me a while to figure out that she was talking about thighs.) I'm willing to bet that not one out of a hundred Thoof users make any connection to truth. Or even truthiness.

- The domain was available. Remember that SNL mockumercial about the Dillon Edwards investment firm ("the people you trust")? Good news: they were finally online. Bad news: the only domain they could get was clownpenis.fart. But hey, it was available! Thoof isn't as embarrassingly bad as that, but its availability has little to do with its effectiveness as a brand. A professional namer could have pointed out to Clarke that (a) there are many good domain names being transferred at reasonable prices, and (b) there are many memorable, pronounceable, non-silly alternatives to a preposterous "available" name.

- If the business succeeds, the name will sound good. Unfortunately, the examples Clarke cites--Yahoo, Flickr, eBay, and Skype--are all based on real, recognizable English words or phonemes. None is a nonsense syllable with zero inherent meaning. "Empty vessel" names like Thoof have an uphill (and expensive) battle to prove to customers and investors that their brand has significance. That's why truly coined names are relatively rare. The exception is Kodak, which is not as random as it may seem: it follows a familiar English word-formation pattern (consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant); it's easy to pronounce in virtually any language; and the "K0-" syllable even suggests "co-," a prefix that means with or together--a highly positive association.

Thoof may prove to be a good business idea, but it's a poorly conceived name. I do, however, like the Thoof logo. Unlike the name, it actually communicates meaning.

Read other posts in New Name Beat.

Update: The Ask Jason blog takes a more fanciful approach to the problem of Thoof:

So how did Thoof get its name? Well it all goes back to ancient Norse mythology. Thoof was the younger brother of the Thor, the god of thunder and war. Thoof, on the other hand, was the god of smiting antiquated news services. Newspapers, scrolls and tablets were his enemies. He instead wanted to provide his followers with dynamic news and information from all over the world, provided customized for each person. Anyone who tried to cross Thoof, met their demise in an unpleasant manner.

New Name Beat: Accretive Solutions

New Name Beat has been on hiatus for a while, but it's back with plenty to talk about. This week I'll take aim at some bad examples; next week I'll make amends by applauding some apt and well-crafted names.

Let's start with a multiple-choice quiz: What does the name "Accretive Solutions" call to mind?

a) Geology

b) Recombinant DNA

c) Something about a labyrinth and a minotaur

d) "Expert solutions in accounting and finance"

The answer--of course!--is accounting and finance.

"Accretive Solutions" attempts to solve the riddle, What do you get when you add Horn Murdock Cole to Dickson Allan, BF Consultants, and CFO Services? Technically speaking, you do get an "accretion": the Latin roots of the word (ad + crescere) mean "growing larger." In biology, accretion is the growing together of parts that are normally separate; in geology it's the slow deposit of water-borne sediment on land; in astronomy it's the increase in mass of a celestial object.

So, yes, "accretive" accurately describes the process by which the merger was effected. It may even describe the way the company does its work, one form at a time. But it's the wrong word for the corporate name. ("Solutions" is wrong, too, but for different reasons that I'll get to in a moment.)

Here's why.

Look at your face in the mirror when you say "accretive" and notice how the long e sound forces your mouth into an unlovely rictus. Strike one. Now listen to yourself. That long e has a small, compressed sound, unlike the sounds made by long or broad a, o, or u. Strike two. The short i of the -tive suffix reinforces the compression. Strike three.

Now, sometimes a "small" sound is just the ticket, as with Lilipip, which makes mobile educational software for children, or Twitter, whose users "revel in the minutiae of everyday human existence." (Thanks to The Name Inspector for that great description, and also for the lead to Lilipip.) But when you're entrusting your family's or your company's finances to an accounting firm, you want that firm to sound solid and substantial, not itty-bitty.

There's another problem with "Accretive": it describes a process instead of communicating a benefit. Who cares that the company was formed by agglomeration? Or that it does its work step by step? How will that information help me feel confident about the firm?

As Horn Murdock Cole (which is how the company used to identify itself in its public-radio sponsorships), this firm sounded traditional and maybe even a bit stodgy. But it clearly communicated that the name partners were actual people, and that, by extension, the company employed real people in real offices who took a personal interest in their clients.

Accretive Solutions, by contrast, is a pseudoscientific name that says nothing about relationships. The corporate web site speaks warmly and engagingly about trust and "the human connection." But the corporate name is at war with that message.

What's happened here is an all-too-common phenomenon in naming: the company has mistaken description for benefit--and forgotten that customers care mostly about benefit.

Finally, "accretive" carries just enough of an echo of "secretion"--especially when "accretive" is preceded by a word ending in s--to be tainted by the yuck factor. I don't know about you, but when I think about my accountant I don't want to be distracted by thoughts of glandular processes.

What about "Solutions"? Here's how The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit defines it:

- a widely abused, vague, generic, and slightly mysterious term used to describe products, of all things, particularly software

- so overused it has lost all meaning; calling something a solution is really just a way of further reinforcing that it has added-value

Lately, "solutions" means "services," too--and ideas, and conversation, and idle dithering in meetings. It's a completely empty word.

(And as Frank Lingua [CEO of Dissembling Associates] put it in a spot-on parody of corpspeak, "If you aren't the lead dog, you're not providing a customer-centric proactive solution.")

"Solutions" is yet another slopover from the vocabulary of science (like corporate DNA); in combination with "Accretive," it really does sound like something liquid that's been precipitated in a test tube.

I don't care for "Accretive Solutions," but I do like that the company uses its new initials in phrases such as  "AS Promised" and "AS Delivered." That's fresh, clever, and meaningful. Too bad the initials represent a missed opportunity.

Read other posts in New Name Beat.

New Name Beat: Knuru

I learned about this month's New Name through Knowledge @ Wharton, a monthly e-newsletter from the University of Pennsylvania's business school.

What it is: Knuru is a new natural-language search engine for business information; Knowledge @ Wharton is its first major partner. "Natural language" simply means that instead of typing keywords into the search field, you type sentences: "What's happening with subprime mortgages?" or "Is Alan Greenspan still alive?" The service is free; results are presented in contextualized summaries from reputable business sources. From knuru.com's About page: "Unlike traditional search engines, knuru [sic] is not concerned with endless indexing of web pages and a never-ending convoluting of page rankings, paid rankings or any other artificial juxtapositioning [sic] of search results based on who pays most. Nor will we serve misleading paid-for search result rankings, which is common with other search technologies."

Where it comes from: Knuru's parent company is London-based Xexco, which founder Dennis Oudejans told me is pronounced "Exco." He added that he acquired "Xexco" when he acquired the company, and he's changing it to Knuru, and we're all thankful for that. (I believe Xexco is Klingon for "What were they thinking?")

What they're saying: Not much--yet. Knuru is still in beta. Microsoft Office users can access it (via a downloadable application) via the Research button; according to 44 voters in a Microsoft Office forum, Knuru earned five out of a possible five stars.

What it means: Dennis Oudejans told me in an email that the company had invited "five or six" naming agencies to bid on the naming project and eventually involved two--an unusual but not unprecedented decision. "One agency had an analytical/scientific approach, whereas the other seemed more unstructured and creative," Oudejans said. The analytical/scientific agency helped the company define its core values: agility, authority, and accuracy. Then the company tossed out all the names developed by the two agencies in favor of its own coinage, a blend of knowledge and guru. "Knuru" has meaning in at least one South Indian language, Tamil, although I was unable to discern from context what that meaning is. Pavala Knuru means "Coral Hill," a landmark near Arunachaleshwar Temple in Tiruvannamalai District, in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. I also discovered a saying in the Tetun language of East Timor: “bikan ho knuru mak baku malu” (as fork and spoon that always touch each other).

What I like: Knuru is short and unusual, and the partnership with Knowledge @ Wharton helps reinforce the "kn = knowledge" connection. The company was smart to register the name with at least three domain extensions domain: .com, .net, and .org. (Many startups fail to take this inexpensive precautionary step and leave themselves open to domain encroachment.)

What I'd worry about: Right off the bat I stumbled over Knuru's pronunciation. English has many words with silent k--know, knife, knock, knuckle. But the dropped k isn't intuitive, because at one time in the language's history (at least until the fourteenth century), the k was sounded in all those words, as it is in the German from which they came. English has also adopted a number of Yiddish words--knish, knaidlach, k'nocker--in which, as in German, the k is hard. (K'nocker is unrelated to the British slang term knackered, in which the k is silent.) And then there's Knut (German) or Knute (Scandinavian), names pronounced with a hard k that are just familiar enough to English speakers to invite confusion. (The English form makes the pronunciation explicit: Canute, which means "white haired.")

All of which explains why I want to pronounce knuru like k'nuru. I'd have no such problem with a silent-g coinage: even though the gn- and kn- stems are equivalent--they both mean "know"--I'm not tempted to pronounce the g. Knuru confuses because it looks too foreign to send the message "follow the common English-pronunciation rules."

Here's a separate problem: I'm not convinced that beginning this name with a silent letter tells the right story for this company, which should be positioning itself as an outspoken--not reticent--knowledge source.

But the biggest problem with Knuru is that, despite its odd look, it's a descriptive rather than a metaphorical name: it tells "who we are" (a knowledge guru) rather than "how your life will be better." Compare, for example, the name of another new natural-language search engine, Powerset--a term borrowed from the language of mathematics and invigorated by an expanded new context (and a great logo). No ambiguous pronunciation or forced word-blend; just the promise of power and being set to do what you want. Very effective. (Thanks to Laurie Clemans for the Powerset update.)

The decision: On a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being "eh" and 5 being "yesss!", I'd give Knuru 3.1. This is a naming decision guided too much by strict etymology (remember: etymology doesn't matter; associations do), domain availability, and programmers' rules ("knowledge plus guru equals knuru") and not enough by common sense ("Will everyone be able to pronounce this word and figure out what it means?") and metaphor. Unfortunately, it's the sort of solution that emerges all too frequently when companies--especially technology companies--name themselves.

But: Knuru may be able to overcome the liabilities of its name with a strong branding message ("We're the knowledge gurus") and some pronunciation guides ("Knuru ... as in know-how"). As they themselves proclaim to their users, context is everything.

New Name Beat: Martin + Osa

I'm going back to my retail/fashion roots with this edition of New Name Beat, which examines a new "store concept" (no one simply opens a shop nowadays) with an enigmatic name.

What It Is: Martin + Osa sells casual clothing in nice fabrics (cashmere, cotton-cashmere blend, tissueweight merino wool) to men and women age 25-40 who've graduated from the torn jeans and faded T-shirts of their college years but don't want to give up comfortable, familiar styles. The first store opened last September in Tysons Corner, a mall near Washington, DC; today there are five stores nationwide, including the one I visited in San Francisco's new Westfield Shopping Center on Market Street. Prices are generally comparable to Banana Republic, although the selection is much smaller--"more tightly edited," as they say in retail.

Where It Comes From: The parent company of Martin + Osa is American Eagle Outfitters, an 850-store chain that sells casual clothing to 15- to 25-year-olds when they aren't shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch or Old Navy. Most shoppers no longer remember American Eagle's history: the company was founded in 1904 as an outdoor-gear company similar to Eddie Bauer or Pendleton. Hence the "outfitters." And hence a slim but significant link to Martin + Osa. Read on.

What They're Saying: "The number of Americans ages 25 to 34 is expected to rise by 5.2 percent by 2010, according to the Census Bureau," the New York Times reported last September in an article about Martin + Osa. "By contrast, those ages 12 to 18 are to fall by 3.3 percent. 'Retailers are salivating over that 30-year-old demographic,' said John D. Morris, an analyst at Wachovia Securities." About the store itself, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, "Wood-walled dressing rooms offer room for strollers while the strategic use of mirrors and wall murals is meant to give the feel of trying on clothes in the great outdoors. In the Refresh zone near the dressing rooms, staff offers bottled water, apples and the use of two restrooms. [Ed. note: No apples when I shopped in S.F. I'm miffed.] Stone walls throughout the store intersperse with warm wood beams shaped rather like a pergola, while lighting subtly shifts and ebbs to mimic the effect of clouds passing overhead." But the most distinctive aspect of the store design is the façade, which is all light-colored wood and blue-tinted glass, with nary a merchandise display to be seen. From the outside, it looks more like a trendy club than a store.

What It Means: Martin + Osa takes its name from two real people, a married couple from Kansas named Martin and Osa Johnson who between 1917 and 1936 traveled and photographed in Africa, the South Pacific, and Borneo. According to M + O company president Ken Pilot, "Our store environment and merchandise assortments will embody Martin and Osa's classically American spirit of sport, outdoor and adventure for today's generation in constant motion." There are links between the Martin + Osa web site and the Martin + Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute ("ranked the #1 museum in Kansas"); I haven't found a direct statement about financial ties, but I'm guessing that AE is contributing something to the (nonprofit) museum.

What I Like: Using linked male and female names as your brand says you sell both men's and women's clothing--although I wonder how many North Americans will recognize "Osa" as any kind of name at all. (It's the Anglicized spelling of a common Scandinavian name.) On the other hand, the unfamiliarity of "Osa" may work in this brand's favor, signaling the adventure and exoticism that the stores and the web site work hard to conjure. (Check out the eclectic reading and listening lists: from the home page, select "Goodstuff [sic].")

Then there's that plus sign, fast becoming the punctuation symbol of choice (replacing "@") to signify hip/cool/modern. A plus sign rejects the ampersand's baroque curlicues in favor of minimalist straight lines and right angles; it turns a partnership into a mathematical equation. Global and borderless, the plus sign--which also suggests an international dialing code--is turning up wherever the market is youthful and plugged in: Adam + Eve clothing for men and women, Tevrow + Chase women's clothing, M + J Savitt jewelry, Crispin Porter + Bogusky ad agency (creators of those Orville Redenbacher-as-zombie ads). Whereas the ampersand is a ligature of the Latin word "et," meaning and, the plus sign transcends Western culture and dead languages. It's positive yet neutral. (Like Switzerland. And what's on the Swiss flag? A plus-shaped cross.)

What bothers me: The first five or six times I heard or read about Martin + Osa I was sure it was an offshoot of Abercrombie & Fitch, not American Eagle. Why? Because the brand story is such a good fit with A&F--not today's slutty-preppy-slacker A&F but the historical company, which was established in 1892 and until the 1960s was known as an elite safari outfitter, the kind of store Martin and Osa Johnson might actually have visited before one of their excursions. (For its part, A&F is also targeting the 25-and-up market with Ruehl No. 925, an even more enigmatic and contrived name than Martin + Osa.) Okay, I'm a retail geek; most customers won't know or care who's behind the concept. I do think, however, that Martin + Osa is going to have to work hard to get customers to go beyond the stores' mysterious exteriors. (So far, you can't buy the merchandise online.) A strange name can help with positioning and generating buzz, but it doesn't always translate into traffic. On the other other hand (consultants have three hands, you know), who today remembers the origins of "Banana Republic?" (The original store sold surplus goods bought from failed dictatorships in tropical zones, disparagingly known as "banana republics.") And who knows what "Old Navy" means? (I for one don't have a clue.)

The decision: I'm all for great name stories, but with Martin + Osa the story isn't enough. Parent company AE will have to make a determined branding and marketing effort to overcome the name's liabilities and get customers to progress beyond those affectless store exteriors. On an ascending scale from 1 to 5, I'll give "Martin + Osa" a 3.7.

But: I'm fine with the plus sign in the name, but the full stops in Martin + Osa's trademarked tagline--"Everyday. Life. Adventures."--set my teeth on edge. Used this way, periods are the new italics; they're inserted after single words to create an annoying staccato rhythm and self-conscious emphasis where none would normally be perceived. (See also Pioneer's "Sound. Vision. Soul." and Sony's "Like. No. Other."--and many others.) Enough. Already.

New Name Beat: Mochila

With this post I'm introducing an occasional feature, "New Name Beat," in which I'll take a close look at some recent corporate and product names. While I'll include technology names in the mix, I don't plan to focus exclusively on them. (If Web 2.0 is your own beat, check out Qwerky, which assigns numerical scores to "the weirdest Web 2.0 names" based on an arcane formula involving vowel drops, bastardized English, turning nouns into adverbs,"the 'R' thang," and myriad other factors.)

Today we slide Mochila into the NRI (Name Resonance Imager), turn the dials, and bring it into focus.

What it is: Mochila ("the marketplace for syndicated content") allows its members to buy and sell articles and photos from magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and websites. As of last week, it also allows websites to incorporate free articles from "some of the best content producers in the world" (that's what magazines and newspapers are called now: content producers. Do I hear a faint mooing in the distance?) and share in any revenue those articles generate.

What they're saying: Mochila has attracted quite a bit of ink in the business press; VentureBeat said its "a la carte publishing model" is something altogether new. Red Herring reported last week that Mochila had secured $8 million in a second round of funding.

What it used to be: Mochila was founded in 2001 as Snapbridge, a publishing automation company. The company registered mochila.com in November 2003.

What it means: "Mochila" is the Spanish word for "knapsack." In U.S. history, "mochila" refers specifically to the type of knapsack carried by Pony Express riders. Indeed, it was the mochila that made it possible for riders to change horses in less than the two minutes allowed.

What I like: Is there any question that "Mochila" is a far more spirited name than "Snapbridge"? It's easy to pronounce and fun to say, from the murmuring "mmmm" (the sound of satisfaction) to the chewy "ch-" (the sound of choo-choos and chuckles and choice and change) to the open "a" ending: aahhh. Bravo to corporate management for choosing a real word with an interesting history and for resisting the temptation to select a descriptive, literal name like, say, "SyndiCont." (And kudos for snagging that "clean" .com domain. Wonder how much it cost.) Metaphorical names, although initially a little tougher to fathom, resonate more deeply and permanently than descriptive names. They also give their owners more room for growth. Today, Mochila's knapsack carries newspaper and magazine articles. Tomorrow, who knows what it may carry? Finally, the initial "M" in "Mochila" is a subtle mnemonic device that reinforces the association with "media" and "marketplace"; "mo-" suggests "more" (we always want more); "chil" is, well, chill (verb and adjective); and the whole word carries a whiff of "macho." And thank God the name isn't a Web 2.0 copycat (Knapsackr, anyone?).

What I'd worry about: "Mochila" is very close in sound to the pre-existing company Mozilla, which distributes the open-source browsers Firefox and Thunderbird. Trademark law is based on the sounds and meanings of words, not on their spelling (just because you want to kree8tively name your company Kokkah-Kohlah doesn't mean you can); a conservative trademark lawyer might be concerned about what's called "likelihood of confusion." Another concern: as with all metaphorical names, this one requires the company to make an extra branding effort. Top managers and salespeople will doubtless have hundreds of conversations that begin with someone looking at a business card with a puzzled look on his or her face and saying "Uh, Mochila?"

The decision: On a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the bestest name in the whole wide world, I'd give Mochila 4.0. I'm hoping the company's founders are well protected by their legal team and that they relish the opportunity to tell the company's story--including the rich history of the name--every time they're asked about it.

But: Go beyond the name to the Mochila website and oh dear oh dear. Who told the MochilaMen that it was OK to use text-messaging punctuation on their corporate site? (I refer to the casual use of the ampersand when "and" is called for, i.e., everywhere.) And then there's the deadly About Us prose: "Designed/created to be first to market"--not once but twice. Repetitive use of passive dependent clauses at the beginnings of sentences (Founded in 2001...Responding to the evolution...Founded on principles). Stiff, meaningless blather (leverages the power of the Internet...promises to fuel...an asset that can be monetized--monetized? gimme a break!). Time to take a little chunk of that $8 million in new funding and hire a real writer.