lacking originality
December 12th, 2007 by Dylan
Every few weeks, Google News shows me a new article about Renkoo that is related to wacky internet company names. The latest is one by the Washington Post. I’ve noticed at least 30 iterations of this concept since March of 2006, with the same examples, and each author sadly trying to come up with catch phrases like “how do you tell a company name from a typo.”
From what I recall, this lame series of articles started from the fairly funny Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character? quiz, though there is likely prior art. This story has been retold so many times, and rarely does the reporter give credit to the people that originally had some interesting insight on the topic.
If you’re a reporter thinking about writing a story about silly company names, here’s a crazy idea. Do the world a favor, stop writing useless drivel, and starting writing about something useful or interesting instead.