Way back in the dark ages of 2007, we reviewed the name Kindle in the very pages of this blog. At the time, we weren’t in love with the name, although we did point out that as a verb, it’s active and suggests exciting or arousing an interest in books. It also suggests illuminating the mind, something a good book should do. But overall, we thought the negative associations (torching books) outweighed the positive (kindling knowledge).

Four years later, Kindle has become one of the three leading e-book readers, the others being the Barnes & Noble Nook and the ubiquitous Apple iPad. Like most bold names, it attracted its share of negative comments, but the product was so good that most people got over the downside of “kindle” and just bought one. And interestingly, Amazon managed to turn a verb into a noun (as opposed to the genericization of Google, in which a noun is turned into a verb, thus losing its proprietary-ness).

Just in time for this year’s holidays, Amazon has released four new versions of the Kindle: Kindle (“all new”), Kindle Touch (multi-touch screen), Kindle Touch 3G (free 3G wireless), and Kindle Fire (color, plus built-in media browser). Here, Amazon has taken the masterbrand approach and appended descriptors to the name Kindle, much like Apple has done with the iPod (dubbing them Touch, Classic, Nano, and Shuffle). It’s a good strategy, and one that allows them a lot of expansion under the Kindle name; they’re building value into the brand on its own, quite apart from the Amazon parent brand.

But what about Fire? Hardly a descriptive term, like 3G or Touch. It’s clearly meant to evoke the result of the kindling, energy and light and power, and it turns the full name into a nifty verb phrase. And because the name is Kindle Fire, not just Fire, they are preserving the strength of the Kindle brand. (Although I wonder about the trademark, filed for by an entity called Seesaw LLC, which has also filed for the mark Amazon Silk – the Kindle Fire’s web browser. Coincidence? I think not! Dun dun duuuuuun.)

Of course there was a ton of speculation about the name of the new device; back in August, Amazon was discovered to have registered various Kindle domain names based on the elements, including KindleAir.com, KindleWater.com, and KindleEarth.com. Perhaps it was a ruse, or perhaps they just hadn’t decided on a name – or there may yet be more two-way-tv-wrist-radios coming from Amazon. You have to admit, though, that Kindle Fire makes a hell of a lot more sense than Kindle Water.

Kindle Fire rocks as a product name for all the right reasons – it’s short, catchy, evocative, and stands out in the marketplace, even a marketplace that’s full of goofy names like eClicto, Boox, and eSlick. It will be interesting to see what Amazon does with the next gen products – will they build on the Fire name, and come out with the Inferno? Or will they go the “earth elements” route? Regardless, Kindle Fire is a smart addition to the Kindle family.

However, the less said about Amazon Silk, the better. Unless it’s a soy-based browser?

Overall Grade: A

I don’t have an iPad yet, but I really really want one. Well, I don’t know if I want an iPad per se, since I have an iPhone already (and really, isn’t the iPad a giant iPhone that doesn’t make calls? But that’s what you get with AT&T! Thank you, I’ll be here all week) but I am totally on board with the tablet computer. Or the ebook. Or the slate thing. Or something-pad. Come to think of it, have we decided what these things are called?

Just before the iPad was announced, there was a lot of speculation as to what it would be called. Certainly it would use the lower-case “i” that Apple now inflicts on all its products, but suggestions ran rampant as to the noun that would follow it: iSlate was a strong contender, as was iTablet, and even iBook (though that seemed unlikely due to the existing MacBook). For Star Trek geeks, iPad certainly seemed like a direct steal from Next Generation, where the PADD (Personal Access Display Device) was ubiquitous.

Jokes about feminine hygiene products aside (and they weren’t that funny, honestly), iPad isn’t a bad name. It’s generic and yet ownable in the style we’ve come to expect from Apple: it’s not just a phone, it’s an iPhone! It’s not just a notebook, it’s a MacBook! So “iPad”, while not thrilling, get the job done – and more importantly, lets you know that it’s an Apple product.

Since the iPad hit the streets, a wave of tablet/slate/pad/book devices have hit the news, although few of them are actually available. The big money is on the Google, which was mentioned by a Verizon exec in May of this year. Maybe it’ll run Android, maybe not. But the combination of Google and Verizon effectively counters the two main complaints about the iPad and iPhone – the craptacular AT&T service and Apple’s paranoia about its OS. So far, the mythical Google device doesn’t have a name, I wonder whether they’re going to come up with something new, or try to extend the Nexus brand (Nexus Tablet, perhaps).

A quick survey of the competitive set shows a lot of variety in the names, including other “pad” names (Lenovo IdeaPad, MSI WindPad), several “book” names (Fujitsu Lifebook, HP EliteBook, MSI Slatebook), a couple that include the word “tablet” (Viewsonic VTablet, Archos 9 PC Tablet), and then a whole bunch of other stuff:

Samsung Galaxy
Notion Ink Adam
Dell Streak
Panasonic Let’s Note
Fusion Garage JooJoo
Halteron iLet
Entourage Edge
ICD Vega
Pandigital Novel
Qualcomm Mirasol

Any idea what a JooJoo is?

I found a lot of these products by doing a Google search on the words “tablet computers” and it looks like that’s the default designation right now. Of course Apple doesn’t ever call its iPad a tablet, but everyone else does, and a lovely picture of an iPad dominates the Wikipedia page about tablet computers. Tablets should not be confused with tablet PCs, which are pen-based, fully functional x86 computers with handwriting and voice recognition, according to Wikipedia, and there are even sub-categories of tablet PCs: booklets, slates, convertibles, and hybrids. If you are like me, your eyes have now glazed over and you’re back to wanting an iPad.

I like “tablet”. It’s good to have a word that focuses on the form factor, rather than the specific functionality; I think devices like the iPad are blurring the lines in terms of what counts as an ebook reader, a media viewer, and an oversized smartphone – and that’s not a bad thing. As for me, I don’t think I’ll be buying anything that connects – or, more accurately, doesn’t connect – to AT&T. I already have that with my iPhone.

Most likely you’ve seen the 2006 MAD TV spoof of the iPod:

I think it’s hilarious that some people on the internet think that Apple didn’t know about MAD TV’s spoof. That Apple would launch a multi-million dollar product and not know about every possible issue beforehand, well, that’s just absurd. Apple knew everything. You don’t think that they calculated that into their marketing campaign? C’mon, these guys are marketing geniuses, not marketing novices.

And let’s talk about the word pad for a minute. Is it really a horrible word choice? It’s fairly abstract in the way that pod was when Apple launched that product. And guess what? People hated the name iPod back then too. They were convinced it was a naming flop. And now it’s part of our common vocabulary. (And, let us not forget the Wii, which was critically panned for six months as a ridiculous name, until the product hit the shelves. Now Wii is revered as a game-changer product and product name.)

And, what about all the computer uses of the word pad? ThinkPad, mouse pad, LeapPad, IdeaPad, not to mention pad of paper, legal pad, gauze pad, lily pad, etc. Is it so damning that one of the nearly five billion uses of the word pad is related to women’s menstrual cycles? Are we so culturally grossed out by a woman’s reproductive cycle that we must condemn anything that even connotes vagina? I think the answer might go without saying.

iPad is a perfect name for Apple. It recalls their other global mega-hit, the iPod. What’s more, it’s abstract enough to apply to this elusive product category. It’s not quite a netbook, not quite a laptop, not quite an ebook reader, and not quite a tablet computer. What better way to define a new category than by just giving it a proprietary and somewhat abstract name (a la iPod)?

And to toss out some love to our trekkie readers: It turns out that Star Trek captains and crew have been using tablet/pad computers for decades. Captain Kirk and Captain Picard used pad computers for reviewing reports. And DS9 Captain Sisko even had a tablet computer called a PADD that looked eerily like the new iPad. Hmm, first Star Trek’s communicator preceded flip phones by 30 or so years. Then Star Trek’s pad computers gave way to the iPad. To boldly go, indeed!

To summarize, I think this too shall pass. In six months when people are happily walking around with their iPads glued to their hands, no one will even give the name a second thought. In fact, I might even go so far as to predict that feminine hygiene pads might lose their association with the word pad. It’s a long shot, but you never know, what with the power of Apple’s branding power…