The name might have something to do with this lack of focus. First there’s the fact that Google is counting on you to pronounce the symbol “+” as “plus”, so that the name is actually “Google Plus”, and in fact that’s the web address (http://plus.google.com). That’s a bit of confusion already, since “+” in English could just as easily be interpreted as the word “and”, as in “salt + pepper” (no one on earth has actually uttered the phrase “salt plus pepper”, to my knowledge).

But the bigger issue is: plus what?

“Plus” is one of those squishy marketing words that lets you get away with a huge promise for something vague and good-er sounding. What’s the “plus” in Kellogg’s FiberPlus? Antioxidents? While grains? Taste? Likewise, the “plus” in Efferdent Plus could refer to the mint flavor, or the fact that it apparently works on retainers as well as dentures (they’re really trying to expand their market!).

So we’ve got the Google brand, which stands for the simple, clean, utilitarian, free (for the most part) alternative to closed houses like Microsoft and Apple. What more “plus” do you want? If Google is really aiming to take over social media, why isn’t it called Google Social? Perhaps it’s just meant to say “Hey, we made Google better!” in an Efferdenty way. But it’s a significant break from the simple, clean, utilitarian naming convention (Google Maps, Google Apps, Google Mail) that helped them stand out in an incredibly crowded space.

Going with a name like Google+ almost feels like there’s something to hide here. Consumers have grown to count on Google to tell them straight up what’s being offered, and the use of “plus” adds a weird, uncomfortable layer to their brand.

Within Google+, the feature names are by turn descriptive (Circles – the people you follow, grouped by relationship to you), suggestive (Hangouts – live video chatting), and kinda arbitrary (Sparks – feed of interesting news & articles, based on your interests). Are we witnessing naming by committee? Make up your minds!

Of course, the reality is that no one will use – or not use – Google+ based on the name. They could have called it something silly like Orkut and people would still use it, if it was simple, clean, utilitarian, and free. Oh, wait…

P.S. Kayla had asked us to come up with some practical and a few humorous suggestions for the new name. Since they didn’t make it to air, I thought we should share:

NYDB Exchange

The Bigger Board

New German Stock Exchange

New Deutsche Stock Exchange

North Atlantic Stock Exchange

TransAtlantic Stock Exchange

Planetary Exchange (a more impressive word than “global”)

Solar Exchange

Galactic Exchange (taking a  cue from Virgin)

Germerica Exchange

Germanosaurus Rex (the biggest thing we could think of)

Battlestar-dot-star Galactica
Dirk Dongle
Johnny Daemon
Magnum IT
Mighty Mouse
Poseidon, Lord of the C++
SQL Squirrel
Tarzan of the Aps
The Flash-Drive
The ReBooter & His Trusty Sidekick Unplugger
The Rockford Fileserver
The Wizard of OS
Windows XP-Men

On the branding front, Doremus has created an stunning video of the futuristic applications of Corning’s glass technologies. At almost 4.5 million views, it’s gone viral. Strong work, Doremus.

4PSA.

Nope, I didn’t just have a brain burp. That’s the name. 4PSA.

I hate to state the obvious, but 4PSA is in the business of developing software for cloud computing purposes. (What? Not obvious?) In particular, VoIP products. They made news recently when they announced their new website (www.4psa.com) and brand identity.

Ya know, it pains me, because I think I like these guys. I spent some time on their website, with their blog, and they seem really earnest. They have some solid partnerships, a well-developed portfolio of products, and a 2010 best new Internet telephony product award to giggle about.

And, while I’m guessing the company name means something, I just have no idea what it is (Public Service Announcement?). Be nice if they made the explanation more obvious on their website, or included one at all. It was late, I was tired, but I couldn’t find any information about what 4PSA means.

More troubling though is the association I did have with the name.

Many of you probably know what PSA stands for. In case you don’t, it stands for Prostate-Specific Antigen, a biological marker used to detect prostate cancer in men over 50 years old. So if you ask most men over the age of 50 what PSA means and their association with cancer will be as immediate as if you said the word tumor.

It’s even more amazing that 4PSA decided to include a number in their name, further reinforcing the association with a blood PSA level. I lifted the following from the American Cancer Institute website:

In the past, most doctors considered a PSA level below 4.0 as normal. In one large study, however, prostate cancer was diagnosed in 15.2 percent of men with a PSA level at or below 4.0. Fifteen percent of these men, or approximately 2.3 percent overall, had high-grade cancers.

Incredible, right?? 4PSA didn’t just choose any old number. They chose the exact, determinate, number that the professional community looks to assess the risk of cancer and recommend a treatment plan! Almost too coincidental. I have to wonder if 4PSA actually intended to draw the association to the test, and, um, why?

Now, the PSA test is actually a pretty controversial test on account of the number of false-positives it produces. But that’s kinda irrelevant here. It’s still a test for detecting prostate cancer, and every male north of 50 shudders to think about it. Pretty big killer that prostate cancer.

So lets do a quick accounting of the 4PSA name:

Pros:

• Short

Cons:

• For most people, meaningless outside the realm of deadly disease
• Hard to remember, but for the association with deadly disease
• No immediate brand story, but for the tale about a DEADLY DISEASE

I’m guessing the name does have meaning, a back-story that doesn’t have anything to do with prostates and cancer. But it serves as yet another reminder of the importance of conducting not just trademark screening on name candidates but Google screens as well.

In addition to ensuring that a name is available as a trademark it’s critical to investigate the possible marketing issues with a name idea, such as, well, the link to deadly diseases. In all of 5 seconds 4PSA could’ve discovered this unfortunate association. It’s the first search result that’s returned when you conduct a Google screen on “PSA”.

Stay healthy, 4PSA. It’s not a good name, but I’m pullin’ for you.

Ordinarily, I tend to be cautious about deploying brand names with swagger. In a world where so many brands are over-promising and under-delivering, you can trigger someone’s bullshit detector in a hurry. But hey, when you’ve got a respected brand and a phone that’s the talk of the latest CES show—and totally lives up to its over-the-top moniker—maybe a little attitude ain’t a bad thing. Plus there’s a lot to be said for real-word product names that are evocative and pack an emotional charge. Just one little quibble, HTC: if you’re going to blast your own horn with names like Incredible and Thunderbolt, maybe it’s time to re-think the tagline “quietly brilliant.”

Back in December, Racebook Marketing Concepts held a Brand Name Auction during which “150 Timeless Trademarks and Domains” were offered for sale. But the auction was more bust than boom: only about 50 people showed up, with a few more bidders participating online. The prices, too, were disappointing, with the highest bid coming in at $45,000 for Shearson, $23,500 for Meister Brau, and $30,000 for Handi-Wrap. Collier’s, a magazine brand with a long history, sold for $2000, to someone acting as a third-party representative for a publishing company, according to AdAge.

Part of the reason for the low turnout, and low returns, was likely confusion over just what one got for the winning bid. The folks who bought the iconic record label Victrola for $1000 got the rights to an intent-to-use trademark application for a wide variety of goods and services in Class 9, including CDs, televisions, computer hardward and software, calculators, printers, amps, speakers, and cell phones. The catch is that since the ITU was filed in 2006 and published for opposition in 2008, the new owners have very little time to verify actual use and submit a specimen of use. Many of the other brands sold were on the basis of ITUs, although a few, like Handi-Wrap for plastic wrap, were actual registered trademarks.

Now this kind of intellectual property dealing is familiar territory to trademark attorneys, but to the average marketing exec or start-up entrepreneur, it’s rough going. The distinction between trademark and brand is something that naming companies like my own, Catchword, have to explain to the majority of new clients. And a “brand name auction” certainly sound like you’d be getting more than just a trademark application; it could imply a logo, collateral, advertising, or even patents to a product. Perhaps it’s not deliberately misleading, but it’s certainly overpromising.

Frome a brand perspective, the important question is whether you can repurpose a brand name. This is a different matter than the revivial of a brand, as was the case with TaB. Coke never stopped making TaB, but the brand suffered a deep decline in popularity when Diet Coke was introduced. But some people remained fans, and the brand continues to be produced; it’s even gained something of a cult status with celebrities, and has a whole fansite devoted to its no-cal goodness (ILoveTaB.com). TaB never died. It just took a little breather.

But take one of the unsold brand names from the auction, Annie Hall. The trademark for this name is specifically for clothing, and the name itself is obviously derived from the 1977 Woody Allen movie. I’m not surprised it didn’t sell; speaking as a consumer, the last time I dressed like Annie Hall was in, oh, 1978. Annie Hall as a character is iconic because of the way she dressed. The influence of that style– vintage, layered menswear– has been strong and persistent, and women’s style is better for it. But the name, and the brand, say “1977″ and “slightly crazy” much louder than they say “fashionable”. Reviving the brand and trying to invest it with a modern feel seems implausible, if not impossible. Perhaps someone will buy it just to print t-shirts that say “Annie Hall” on them.

Other brands, like Shearson, will probably have an easier time. Allen Adamson feels that “the Shearson brand, unlike many others in the financial services category, didn’t disappear because people lost trust or confidence in its ability to deliver sound advice and solid service … Shearson had a good reputation, one of the few names in the industry that were never tarnished.” Repurposing Shearson into another financial services company will work because it never got a bad rep, and because people’s memories are hazy. They know the name Shearson was somehow associated with investing, but they will likely never remember its history or realize the name is being used by a totally different entity.

But what about brands that are more than just names? I’d certainly put Victrola into that category – it wasn’t just a record label, it was an actual product that still turns up in movies and television as shorthand for “old fashioned”. How likely is it that Victrola can be imbued with another meaning? Even the construction of the name is old-timey sounding, a contraction of Victor (the company that manufactured them) and pianola, another word for player piano. Perhaps it has a future with a company that produces steampunk DVD players that run on gears and cranks. Likewise, Infoseek (which went for $2000 as part of a package deal) has the stink of “failed Internet search engine” all over it. The descriptive two-word combo tech name is so very mid-90s and has no personality at all.

In the end, it seems to me that very few of the brands offered for sale were worth the money. They didn’t have a lot of brand awareness, the trademarks are pretty restrictive, and, frankly, the names just aren’t that good. The days of search engines called InfoSeek, shampoos called Short & Sassy, and movie chains called General Cinema are long past. The demand for new, interesting, and unique brand names has never been greater, and while recycling is no-brainer for paper and plastic, it’s a lot tougher to make it work for brand names. And don’t even think about trying to resurrect Edsel or Pinto!

No, #AwfulCereal was a JOKE meme: you make up the name of a really horrible cereal and post it to make everyone laugh. Additionally, the name should be a play on a current cereal. There’s no laughter in coming up with, say, Dirt Clods for a cereal name, but Puffed Mice (courtesy of the amazing Michael McKean) is hilarious.

I spent 20 minutes scrolling through Twitter to bring you the best of this meme. Enjoy!

And your contributions are welcome!

PipSqueak noti­fies you when­ever your phone is receiv­ing a call. The noti­fi­ca­tion can be adjusted to any of sev­eral lev­els, includ­ing “vibra­tion only” to “vibra­tion, light & sound”. Upon being noti­fied, you may sim­ply retrieve/answer your phone.

It’s just the thing for people who have a tough time finding their phones when they do ring. The design is quite nice, and we’re proud of our name!

Which snaps us into thinking about Twitter.

More specifically, those names on all those Twitter accounts. We think that so many tweets (26 million tweets a day last time anyone checked) the many 140-character messages are less like letters and more like snowflakes. No two alike, a steady blizzard of facts, rumors, rants, lust, snark and swoon.

While we’re waiting for Sammy to come over with our next round, a couple of thoughts cross our minds.

For twelve years now we’ve hung out our shingle as naming specialists. Catchword spends its days thinking about names and language, syntax and meaning, words and spelling.

And frankly, to us it seems as though most people spend more time choosing their clothes in the morning than deciding on a good Twitter name. As a naming company, hey, we thought we’d weigh in with some ideas on naming your Twitter account as a product, the brand of you.

Like we advise when starting our naming projects: people, take a minute. There’s probably a fancy chart online somewhere that shows the amount of time spent conceiving twitter name corresponding to the decrease in future embarrassment.

Your Twitter name is your inkless tattoo
To that dude on the D train with the scripty tattoo on his neck: “unlucky”. That will be there for a long, long time my sullen friend. Same with piercings. Same with your tweets. And unlike a tattoo, there’s no erase (although you just get a new Twitter name, you know what we mean). Pick a name that you’ll want to live with.

Your Twitter name is a billboard about you
Put it this way: would you want to share a bus with some of people behind those Twitter names? Pick a friendly, approachable name. Hopefully one with no olfactory reference.

Your Twitter name is your online GPS
Pick a name that helps people find you. You DO want people to find you, right? With the shift away from voice mail, email, blogs, all funneling towards tweets, your Twitter presence is an even bigger beacon to those you know, and those you want to know.

Could your Twitter name pass the DMV test?
Imagine your Twitter name being announced over the loudspeaker at the DMV office. Would you respond? Pick a name you can imagine your mom repeating.

Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and now Twitter names.
To all of you John Smiths out there, your Twitter name ship already sailed. But there’s no reason why you can’t add some further definition to your name (usual suspects being geography, birth year, the basics). Just no “playahjohnsmith”, please.

So there. Hope that helps.

If you have any questions or want some naming for your Twitter account (even your household pet) give us a shout. After all, you’ve now got a friend in the naming business.