Kicking Crunchy Leaves
Friday, April 24, 2009
iGoogle
I have a few questions. Not about iGoogle (as I have been using this
for a while now and love it) but about the 'i' in front of Google. Why
does everything have an 'i' infront of it all of a sudden? I know it
has to do with 'me' and hence the 'i' but why not call it 'my'? It
would make more sense to have 'mypod' and 'myphone' and 'myGoogle' page
and 'myselect'-ion of health insurers. Does the 'i' in front of all
these things all of a sudden make them irresistible and therefore a
marketer's dream?
Did Apple invent the 'i' in ipod? If they did - perhaps they kept the
golden egg and gave away the goose. Yes, ipods are popular but imagine
the bucks they could have raked in with the royalties from the simple
addition of 'i' to support a product. In a way it is similar to the
celebrity endorsement we see with many products. Paul Newman's head on
a sauce bottle; George Foreman's autograph on a grill. Or perhaps it
could be that the 'i' is actually a nod to the success of Apple and its
products just as 'German engineering' acknowledges other top brands
engineered by Germans like VW, Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, and Porsche.
Either way is it even possible to own a word? I am aware of Burger
King's plight when extending their franchise to Australia and deciding
to go with Hungry Jack's as their name was already in use for a burger
shop somewhere in South Australia. Not that it did any harm since
customers were sucked into the idea that 'the burgers are better' at
Hungry Jack's because they are Australian. What's in a name?
Apparently quite a bit!
So perhaps we could have iVicnet - your personal community portal. Or
even go one step further and have iSLV. Your very own personal mini
State Library - now with miniature Ned Kelly armour (for all your
miniature bushranger needs).
for a while now and love it) but about the 'i' in front of Google. Why
does everything have an 'i' infront of it all of a sudden? I know it
has to do with 'me' and hence the 'i' but why not call it 'my'? It
would make more sense to have 'mypod' and 'myphone' and 'myGoogle' page
and 'myselect'-ion of health insurers. Does the 'i' in front of all
these things all of a sudden make them irresistible and therefore a
marketer's dream?
Did Apple invent the 'i' in ipod? If they did - perhaps they kept the
golden egg and gave away the goose. Yes, ipods are popular but imagine
the bucks they could have raked in with the royalties from the simple
addition of 'i' to support a product. In a way it is similar to the
celebrity endorsement we see with many products. Paul Newman's head on
a sauce bottle; George Foreman's autograph on a grill. Or perhaps it
could be that the 'i' is actually a nod to the success of Apple and its
products just as 'German engineering' acknowledges other top brands
engineered by Germans like VW, Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, and Porsche.
Either way is it even possible to own a word? I am aware of Burger
King's plight when extending their franchise to Australia and deciding
to go with Hungry Jack's as their name was already in use for a burger
shop somewhere in South Australia. Not that it did any harm since
customers were sucked into the idea that 'the burgers are better' at
Hungry Jack's because they are Australian. What's in a name?
Apparently quite a bit!
So perhaps we could have iVicnet - your personal community portal. Or
even go one step further and have iSLV. Your very own personal mini
State Library - now with miniature Ned Kelly armour (for all your
miniature bushranger needs).
posted by Danielle at 4:13 PM
2 Comments:
Hmmmm - weird formatting. Not sure how that happened...
this seems like a real 'bee in your bonnet'!
I think SLV is working on a 'me' or 'I' @ SLV as part of the next web development.
We were just talking about Google this morning and how people have copied the "google" logo style, so you could say it has worked as a marketing ploy, same for Apple and ipod.
Too much for me or should I say i me
Linda
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