Thursday, April 19, 2007

Froogle Now "Product Search"

Froogle has been renamed to Google Product Search, Google announced, as “the name caused confusion for some because it doesn’t clearly describe what the product does.”

What previously happened in regards to Google renaming products:

• Google Print = Google Book Search
• Gmail = Google Mail (in some countries only, and due to trademark disputes)
• Google Local = Google Maps (it’s not been renamed everywhere, but that’s the general direction)

What may happen anytime soon:

• Picasa Web Albums = Google Photos (or Google Photo Album, Google Image Album, Google Your Photos etc.)
• YouTube = Google Video (not likely, because the community would complain – I’m just listing it anyway)
• Google Base = Google Products Upload
• Google SketchUp = Google 3D
• Google Earth = Google Maps Desktop
• Blogger = Google Blogging (also not likely)
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets = Google Office (or Google Suite, Google Tools, Google Work etc.)
• Google Co-op = Google Customize
• Google Chat = Google Talk (or the other way round; e.g. right now, Google Chat is actually a “Google Talk Gmail”)
• Google Personalized Homepage = Your Google (or My Google or something – Google Personalized Homepage is just too long)

I think “dumbing it down for us” is not the only reason Google might steer clear of new fantasy names in the future – it’s also that they’re getting into a lot of additional trademark/ domain disputes whenever they don’t use the word “Google” in the service name.

Join the ongoing comments.

[Thanks Pri!]

Froogle Now "Product Sear ... by Philipp Lenssen

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