Eric Weaver at Brand Dialogue has written a smart, thorough post on the proliferation of me-too names among soi-disant Web 2.0 companies. Flickr, Talkr, Enablr, Coastr ... don't you feel sorry for that poor hijacked "e"? Weaver's main point:
From my perspective, the tech startups that are copying their more successful brethren show a lack of imagination, which is surprising given the tremendous amount of imagination it takes to craft a brand new kind of functionality or mashup using C++ and AJAX. And when some even steal signature graphic design elements from others - at times, even exact colors - they simply should be caned. At that point, they deserve to be just one more me-too play on the way to market fade-out.
How far over the edge have the lemmings gone? Check out Certifyr, where you can fill out a brief questionnaire about your own web site (big fonts? silly or misspelled name? wiki? podcast/video/mobile content?) and learn whether you qualify for "Web 2.0 certification."
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