We're continually amazed that
people trademark names that are spelled differently
than they sound. In today's word-of-mouth world, what you hear is
what you
type in your browser, so it's imperative that your name is easy and
intuitive to spell. Case in point: Takkle.com, a high school sports
website.
When Jeff says, "Yo Steve, check out
Takkle.com," Steve hears "tackle" and when he
types it in his browser, he lands at Bass Pro, a fishing tackle website. So Takkle loses a customer and Steve thinks Jeff is a
dork. During a panel discussion at the
recent MashUp teen marketing conference, Alexandra asked Takkle CEO David Birnbaum if, in hindsight, he would have chosen a name that was easier to spell. He said he would stick with Takkle. Proving Alexandra's point, RockYou.com founder Lance Tokuda jumped in and said
that
RockYou loses
thousands of
customers a day who type in "rocku." We wonder how often the Takkle guy has to say "that's Takkle with two
K's," when he isn't sporting a Takkle
baseball cap that he can point to.