Sponsored
What’s in a name? When it comes to branding, everything. When it comes to online branding, even more. Think of the names we know, Google, Youtube, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, etc… All of these names create a strong and immediate brand image once you read or hear them. But it wasn’t always that way. What was a Google the first time you heard it? Did you wonder who came up with such a ridiculous name as Digg? All of these strong brands originated from an idea. One that perhaps nobody else understood at the time, but to the founder(s), it was as clear as day.
Today, Thoof, a personalized news system is currently working to build their brand image. But let’s back up a little. Thoof? How do you come up with one of these names? Well I know in my case it was by accident. So I suspect that they came up with it in a similar manner.
Inspiration hits at the strangest times and so do tennis balls. One day, one of the Thoof founders was shagging balls at the local tennis courts as he always did working his day job as ball boy. He dreamed of his new Web 2.0 startup all day long, but sadly it took his attention away one time too many. He was awaken from his daze by a ball hitting the net and without realizing what was going on, he sprinted for the ball. Had he been paying attention, he would have seen the other ball boy running towards it at all.
Smash!!!! His head collided with his counterpart’s knee and down he went. A hush came over the courts as people anxiously looked over to see if he was OK. As he slowly regained consciousness, images of his startup spun through his mind while the unattended tennis ball machine continued to fire off in the distance. “Thoof, thoof, thoof, thoof, thoof, thoof, thoof,…”
The ball boy’s eyes opened, widened and he dashed off for his computer. He now had a name for his startup. The shocked onlookers had no idea what to think. Assuming the ball boy was ok, they returned to their tennis games, having no idea that they had witnessed the birth of one of the future big names of the web.
(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
Loading ...
3 responses so far ↓
1 sandossu // Aug 17, 2007 at 2:22 pm
It seems really interesting, i will sign up to try it.
2 Kuanyin // Aug 17, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I’ve been using Thoof on several of my blogs.
3 Marc // Aug 17, 2007 at 9:53 pm
It’s neat to hear that people are already using it. I hadn’t heard about it until I wrote this.