After joining lemmy I decided to check out what else the “fediverse” has to offer which naturally led me to Mastodon which is actually pretty neat. However…I can’t help but wonder why in the world the name Mastodon was chosen? I guess I can buy some kind of meaning behind it and if so, fair enough. But… I still can’t ignore that it feels like the naming equivalent of soggy cold toast and generates about as much excitement. I just feel like a name bit less…lame? would help a lot to generate buzz and hasten culture adoption of it. No idea what that name would be, just throwing it out there. Happy to be enlightened if this is an unpopular opinion.
Mastodon is a very cool heavy metal band and a extinct elefant like creature I don’t get what would be lame about it.
Would you rather It had a simpler, placeholder name like “X”? Kidding. But after joining a platform named Lemmie, I don’t think questioning Mastsdon is the right move. My 2 cents.
Marketing-wise, I believe it’s very hard to make a name for a product/service/platform/app/whatever that has (or sounds like having) more than 2 syllables catch on. I mean, mas-to-don doesn’t quite roll off your tongue like face-book, twit-ter, you-tube, lem-my, etc.
In that sense, I agree with the OP in that “Mastodon” was a poor name choice (and as opposed to him, even if there is an explanation for it), and may well contribute to hurt its adoption by the general public. It’s the kind of name you sometimes see FOSS enthusiasts come up who can write great software but has poor knowledge (or downright disdain) in marketing, product management, and other business aspects.
In-sta-gram
Although I’m only saying that to be contrarian, I do actually agree with you 😬
My point was more about pronunciation, not necessarily a hard count of syllables (which would be just an easier guideline). Your example and “Amazon” are kinda the exceptions that proves the rule. 🙂
Playstation, Nintendo, Photoshop, Nvidia? Sorry to pick on you, just made me question how many I could find 😄
Mastodon was the morphing phrase & zord of the original Black Ranger.
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