I could be alone here, but when I hear "freebase" one thing comes to mind: smoking crack. I don't smoke crack, or anything else for that matter, but being a veteran urbanite I can't help but associate that term with the people who hit the ol' glass pipe on the corner of 2nd and bell at 2am.
The Freebase.com domain looks like it hasn't had much attention until this week (currently a Page Strength 2), so Google probably isn't too quick to bump it up in the serps for the term "freebase."
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The moral here: choosing a name with funny connotations may have interesting results at the search engines until your domain is recognized as having a bit of authority. Also, don't smoke crack. Crack makes you crazy. Crazy people stab one another and hang out on street corners late at night.
So, ummmm, what happens if you combine Freebase with Yahoo! Pipes? Do you get all Fark'd up?
Or are you just a Cracked head?
I wish I'd made the "yahoo pipes + freebase = I'M SO HIGH" connection first. Scott you are a genius.
Wow, is it Friday or what?
Yes, and on that note, I am leaving the office to go celebrate.
Note: This weekend celebration will not include pipes or freebase ;)
I have my moments. Unfortunately, they usually come while talking about crack.
The worst product naming of all time still goes to these guys (circa 1982) or worst luck at least...
Not a brand, but a slogan. The energy drink Lucozade in the UK used to have the tagline - "Aids recovery" which they quickly changed in the early 80's.
Amazing. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Definitely the winner!
I can't imagine the brand assocation is something the Freebase.org folks desire. It's like that guy who was featured on the Daily Show with his energy drink called "cocaine." It may seem like a good one to be noticed, but the negative connotation is always going to exist. I can't think of a brand that's picked up a name like that and grown out of obscurity.
Actually, freebase.org appears to be some kind of multimedia editing suite with a similar color scheme as freebase.com. Hooray for brand confusion!
I remember this guy, but I had never seen the clip from the Daily Show so thanks for the link. Very funny.
Makes you wonder how stupid one person can be doesn't it?
It seems obvious why he chose the name, but it's also obvious he didn't quite think that choice through.
So let me get tis strait - you are saying that my new startup herionpoop.com is a bad idea?
Damn.
Hell no, heroinpoop.com is BRILLIANT!
Sure, they say it's free now...
but just wait, the next thing you know, it'll be the hotest thing around, all your friends will be doing it, you'll find you can't do anything without it, you won't be able to think of anything else, and then...
they'll start charging you for it once you're hooked.
And as far as freebase goes, I think you'll be hooked pretty quick...
It amazes me that a company chose this name. Messed up translations are easier to forgive.
Here's some more amazingly bad domain names.
I will have to say, that it is probably a very easy to remember name, which may help in the long run, but trying to make a solid company out of freebase seems like it would be a branding nightmare.
Great points about the name. As much as it is a nice name it does have horrible connotations. Names are important.
Some of those names sound like companies guys started after watching SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy with Sean Connery:
Sean: "I'll take Anal Bum Cover for $200"
Alex: "That's 'An Album Cover.'"
Man, I check in on the blog from SXSW and this is what's going on?
SXSW was solid. Unfortunately I had to leave yesterday, but not before some good times. Did you go to the SEO panel today? I really wanted to, but there was no way. Let me know.
[email protected]
Maybe I'm dating myself a little, but when I hear freebase I still think of Richard Pryor.
LOL
I'm so glad to see this post.
Recently I was looking at analytics for the SEM Zone and was surprised to see "freebasing" as a keyword that drove at least one poor soul to our site.
Then I realized my coworker had put it in the title of a post a few weeks back. Hey it got us ranked on the second page (barely)!
LOL, couldn't have said it better.
I don't know... I can think of another pretty big name that shares a drug reference. Coke, anyone?
Naming aside, I'm dissapointed to hear this comment from you Oatmeal: "to me it looks like another geek-centric technology that is exciting to the techies but useless to 99.9% of the population."
I think that ultimately the job of web developers is to bring glorious geekiness to a place that the everyday dude can get into. Here's how I see it: I study some junk that is useless to 99% of the population (php, css, javascript), and I attempt to make it into something that can dazzle my girlfriend (who resides in the other 99%). A database technology will never be exciting to the mass population, but what applications can stem from this that would excite the mainstream? As a web developer, I'm intrigued.
Of course in the case of Coca-Cola cocaine was an original ingredient. It was only a few years later that it was replaced with sugar so the name did make sense at a time when people wouldn't have thought the same things about cocaine we do now.
I suspect by the time cocaine took on the negative connotation Coke as a brand was already too strong to require changing it. And it's possible that cocaine wasn't referred to as coke until after the cola made the name a household word.