It’s a dangerous proposition for a product name to turn into a verb or generic noun. For example, some people still say ‘xerox’ instead of photocopy. And, if you’ve ever read some of those writer’s magazines (I admit, I have), you’d have sees companies like Kimberly-Clarke begging for folks not to turn Kleenex into a noun (it’s facial tissues, if you want to know). I think the biggest example now is Google – we don’t search the Web, we google the Web.
Well, as is usual in the read-search cycle of wending one’s way through the Web, I came across a reference in
Engadget that has nothing to do with Lifeblog, but references to it as a
noun:
And I remembered one from The
Register, and searched for it with Google (as opposed to just googling it):
storage is now pretty well cheap enough for you to just record your whole life in a lifeblog
I say it’s dangerous, because using a product name as a noun or verb actually dilutes the impact of the product name or brand (or so we marketing mavens have been over-trained to think of the brand). Therefore, I cannot fully say I am happy or sad. Sad, if this alternate usage of the product name will diminish us and then diminish our parent brand. Happy, meaning that we are already getting to the state where folks are thinking of us and how we apply to other things in the world.
I suppose I could be happy if folks said ‘Lifeblog’ with a capital ‘L’ meaning our product. I don’t mind also if folks start propagating other terms referring to products in our class:
- multimedia diary
- automatic multimedia diary
- life recording
- life recorder
- life browser
- life archive
I’m not so sure about these terms:
- lifeblogging
- a lifeblog
- lifeblogger
So, short of me being a ninny, I’d rather at this stage that we get referred to as Lifeblog (as a product name). I think in the above two examples, that would have fit well. But, part of me is thrilled to have been thought of and used in this way.
Ah, ambivalence…
