Google is de-branding its product price comparison tool, dropping what the company admits now was an ill-conceived brand, “Froogle,” and calling it something that I hope they didn’t pay a consultant to dream up, but what is a vast improvement and worthy of whatever the fee was, nonetheless: Google Product Search.
Quote from CNET News.com:
“I don’t think we understood the complications with rolling out another brand,” Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search product and user experience, said. “While it was a cute and clever name, it had issues around copyright and trademark, as well as internationalization…The pun (to “frugal”) isn’t obvious.”
I’m impressed with her candor.
I think it’s also telling that Foogle, introduced in 2005, never dropped the “Beta” — until, well, now.
Bonus links:
Lots of good Danny Sullivan.
Technorati Tags: google
April 18th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Is it wrong to express my dismay about a society where the pun of the name “wasn’t obvious”?
April 19th, 2007 at 12:04 am
It still is “Beta” under the new name, and it still appears as “Froogle” under “More >>” from the main Google search bar (Probably because “Product Search” wouldn’t fit well in the contextual menu… or someone wasn’t paying much attention).
April 19th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Well - I can relate. I’ve had many an instance when I tell someone to go to “flickr” and they type in “flicker.com”. And when I say “uh, there’s no e” they ask “Why?” and I have no answer.
It’s hard to remember all the creative names of these Web 2.0 sites and even harder to remember the misspellings.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:44 am
[...] The pun wasn’t obvious? Come on now. People are smarter than that, right? Spread It Around: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
April 19th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
[...] they’re talking about Google Product Search here, here, here, [...]