Twittering

The internet is amazing. Not because you have all the news and information in the world right at your fingertips, or because you can buy any product you can imagine with just one click, but because the creators of some of the most popular applications or sites decided to name their companies the silliest names imaginable. "Yahoo" and "Google" are the two biggest search engines on the internet. They are also the two most ridiculous names of any company worth over a billion dollars.

What impresses me the most is these brands have become so ubiquitous, it's normal to use them as verbs. No one says "I looked it up on google" or "I was updating my blog" It's "I googled so-and-so" and "I was blogging" Not only that, it's become inevitable and expected to turn proper nouns into verbs. Twittering just became a new phenomenon in the past few months. No one bats an eyelash. It's the latest and greatest internet invention, and it might be the funniest name of all. The trick is all these words are a lot of fun to say.

My theory is the dirtier sounding the brand, the more successful the company is. It's why MySpace worked and Friendster didn't. It's why Ask.com will never be nothing more than a second-tier search engine. It's why the richest corporation in the world is named Microsoft, which means "Extremely Small Not Hard"

Imagine if I traveled back in time to the 1950s, and I said "I was watching the State of the Union last night, and I realized I forgot the First Lady's name. I discovered she's called "Mamie" after I googled her. Plus, I found her Twitter and now I follow it religiously." President Eisenhower would personally drive down to my house and smack me in the face. He would take his World War II trained fists of vengence and punch me repeatedly.

I would combat the aggression by asking the President about his blog. This would confuse the hell out of him. He would go back to the White House and tell Mamie that he might have some sort of disease. Vice-President Nixon would have to invoke the 25th amendment so Eisenhower would have his youtubes checked out. The doctor may have to poke him on his Facebook.