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by uptown 5389 days ago
I'd argue that the difference between iPad, iPad, MacBook Pro and Qwickster is that it's very very easy to mis-spell Qwickster.

It could be Qwickster, Quickster, Qwikster, Quikster, Qwickstr (if you wanna go the Flickr route) and probably some variations I haven't thought of. At the very least, Netflix should have made an effort to secure the domain-names for these alternate spellings to ensure their customers can find them when they finally go live.
2 comments
Bud 5389 days ago
The other difference is that Qwikster is a deeply stupid name.

The other other difference is that iPad, iPod, iPhone, etc. actually describe their eponymous products, and Qwikster doesn't recognizably describe anything.

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_pius 5389 days ago
The other other difference is that iPad, iPod, iPhone, etc. actually describe their eponymous products ...

iPhone? Sure. iPad? Maybe. iPod? Definitely not.

It only seems that way because the iPod dominated the product category so strongly as to become synonymous with "portable digital music player."

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Bud 5389 days ago
Huh? The iPad is pad-shaped and "pad" is a commonly-understood noun in the tech world to refer to these devices.

Same thing for iPod. It's pod-shaped (or was when it was introduced) and it's a pretty simple mental leap to classify this "pod" as a thing that you put your music "into".

By stark contrast, "Qwikster" has absolutely no mental, cultural or conceptual link to the product or service it describes. It's worthless as a name in addition to being confusing, already taken by various other services, impossible to spell, and dorky.

Not really debatable.

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_pius 5388 days ago
What does a "pod" have to do with playing music? Less than what being "quick" has to do with a DVD delivery service, in my opinion.

Not saying I like "Qwikster," but it's just not the case that the word "iPod" sounded like a music player before Apple made it famous.

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foulmouthboy 5389 days ago
Oh I'm sure I could rattle off at least a hundred or so names of products and services that have no relationship to their relative products, are challenging to spell (assuming you hadn't heard of them before) and sound somewhat similar to other services.
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glhaynes 5389 days ago
Netflix should have made an effort to secure the domain-names for these alternate spellings

And the correctly-spelled Twitter name! http://twitter.com/#!/qwikster

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uptown 5389 days ago
That's the second time I've botched their name while trying to type it correctly. Guess I'm proving my own point.
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