Web 2.0 Ridiculousness

Politics 2.0 April 02, 2008

So what's the deal with these web 2.0 names? All the good, reasonable ones were taken so it seems we've resorted to making up words.
Hulu, Joost, Gabbr, Ookles, Zoho...


It's like someone just put up a dartboard of letters and told his team to just throw darts.
"We'll name our site at the word you end up making."
"But what if it's not a word?"
"You're fired."
And then people just start throwing darts.

"Ted, what've you got?"
"I've got Joomla."
"Oh dude, is that contagious??"
"No no, that's the name for a website."

"John, what'd you come up with?"
"Well, I got flicker...but without the r."
"That's ok. We don't have time to correct our spelling. Let's just get our site up there!"

That's the other thing. So many 2.0 site names are just simply misspellings - mostly forgetting the "e" when the end is "er." Should we just alter the English language? Is that supposed to be cool?

Gabbr.com. It's not Gabber with an e. It's cooler.
Wondir.com. It's a wonder they think this makes sense.
Frappr, talkr, flagr, Gtalkr, browsr, tumblr (sigh).

Additionally, other words are just lame.
Skype, skobee, slawesome, mabber, mologogo, goowy, diigo, rollyo, jambo, zooomr (three o's??). Where do they come up with these?

Actually, I heard that a few sites are now hiring babies to come up with their domain names. I think they pay well too - like $100K. Suddenly babies' first words are actually million-dollar ideas!

And in case you don't understand these names, other sites have opted to tell you exactly what you do on their site by including you in their names. YouTube. MySpace. YouSendIt. ISpott. MyBlogLog. MyProgs. IOweYou. MeFeedia. I mean, if I go to your online profile, why is MySpace your space?

Some site names are just patronizing. Are we that stupid? Prosper, RateItAll, GiveMeaning, MailBigFile, LibraryThing. Come on now.

Others are just odd. Plurn. Pando. Riya. Yedda.

Seriously. You want a good web 2.0 name? Write down every letter of the alphabet three times, putting each letter on its own index card. Now throw this pile on the floor and pick a random number of cards in any order. There's your domain name. I don't care what it is, you can use it.

Oh, and the more vowels you can take out, the better. Let's write this Hebrew style.

But seriously...
On the design side, 2.0 is a wave of design changes that aim at providing more user-friendly interfaces. This includes larger fonts, bright colors and gradients. Almost ALL web 2.0 logos consist of their name written in some kind of fat, gradient, colorful font. As much as this causes a definite generality and loss of individualism with all 2.0 sites (as in, you can tell right away if a site is 2.0 based on its look), at least you can be sure of one thing: it's probably easy to use.

And about these 2.0 forms. They're so heavily AJAXed and Javascripted that everytime you move from one input to another, the site makes sure you know what you're typing either by highlighting the input in a colorful box or putting a checkmark next to it as you type so you know what exactly you're doing. Well you know what? I'd like to make a passive-aggressive site with a registration full of blank inputs that just says "Guess."

Come on though. Everytime I go to a site that's got these grayed-out stripes and bright colors and gradients, I just find myself getting annoyed.

And the worst part is, these made-up words have seeped into our daily conversation. We now "facebook." We "skype." We check out peoples' "myspaces." We flickr.

Face it, we do. We flickr hard.

As if it wasn't already hard enough for our parents to understand what goes on in our lives, now even if we decide to talk, they won't get it.

I told my Mom to check out my photos on flickr. She went to the site and said there wasn't anything there.
"It's spelled without an e" I said.
"Without an e? Do they know they spelled it wrong?"

My Dad was barely learning how to use his new Mac when I told him that I poked this girl on Facebook who then friended me and wrote on my wall.
He said, "what does that all MEAN??"

I think the only good thing that can come out of this is that my professors don't know all the 2.0 names that exist and I can use it as an excuse not to come to class. I mean, having the Flu these days just sounds boring and made-up. I think I'd get a lot more attention and leeway if I had Zorpia.

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