[CivBase]

"Revue by Twitter"

It's interesting that the tech giants keep tagging their names onto the brands they acquire. Does that really help?

I know that the tech crowd exists in a bubble and that the hatred for the tech giants on HN doesn't really reflect the feelings of the general public... but even outside the tech sphere, are there really many people who like Twitter as a company? Most people just seem to tolerate the companies behind their preferred platform. It doesn't seem to me like there would be many who would be more likely to engage with a new brand as a result of its association with Twitter. If anything, I'd expect the opposite effect.

[cocktailpeanuts]

Interesting that they don't do "GitHub by Microsoft", or "NPM by Microsoft". Maybe there's some insight in there somewhere...

[enos_feedler]

Everyone knows github. Adding microsoft to the name doesnt get more sign ups. Npm doesnt even get sign ups this way. I have no idea what Revue is. Adding Twitter to the name gives it instant credibility.

[sneak]

Microsoft wants to keep their corporate stink off of those brands as to not taint their market dominance and continued growth. It appears to be working.

They're slowly working other, less-Microsoft-branded proprietary stuff into them, like Azure and VSCode.

GitHub and NPM however remain without even a mention of their ownership and decisionmaking entity.

Some of the marketing for these things they've even taken to posting on unaffiliated domains, like we saw on HN yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903358

They're trying really hard to not remind people that the same people who put ads in your start menu also own and control your favorite free code host, too.

Call it Microsoft GitHub whenever you can.

[whomst]

I’ve heard that it might be for anti trust reasons (but with putting Facebook on all of its properties). Properly establishing who owns what up front makes the average user more aware of the consolidation of platforms

[elliekelly]

I’ve seen that argument a few times recently as well but I don’t find it at all persuasive. Public perception of market competition isn’t relevant to antitrust law. That the public is more aware of a company’s anti-competitive behavior doesn’t somehow absolve or even lessen the potential liability for the anti-competitive behavior.

Or perhaps I just don’t understand the point they’re trying to make? I’ve yet to come across this antitrust/branding argument where the rationale has been explained but I’d definitely be curious to hear the legal theory.

[TimPC]

The only thing I can come up with is that being aware of the damages in advance of a purchasing decision might in some cases serve to limit said damages relative to being unaware of them. Not sure it applies in a monopoly setting where awareness of damages doesn't give you an alternative though. It gets more complicated when damage is speech instead of a financial exploit on a product.

[enos_feedler]

If Revue were a big company perhaps. In this case I think its just to give Revue more value through the brand association.

[walterbell]

We are "Reviewed by Twitter" and we are here to help.