Name change: SMS Text News is now "BigZebraRedGreen-Tango-Elephant"

Not quite.

For a while now, I have been thinking of changing our site name. I’ve been discussing it with a few people — and over the CTIA week a lot of folk I met agreed.

Originally I was writing a lot about SMS. Obviously we do a lot about the mobile industry in general. Across a typical week, we throw a nod to devices, to companies in the news, to startups, service reviews, the odd interview and so on. It definitely isn’t restricted to text messaging related items.

So should I change the name? Part of me thinks it’s a heritage and, well, we should stick with it. We’re well known. I walked around CTIA with the site on the name badge — and when people weren’t reading it and wondering “Billericay???”, they were recognising the site name, “Oh I read you!” was a common conversation opener.

But then, one lady I met wasn’t that impressed.

“What is it you do?” I asked.
“Multimedia messaging solutions — MMS,” she said, studying my badge but trying not to look as though she was.

“I’m from SMS Text News,” I thought I should help her out.

“Oh,” her face fell, “Sorry, I didn’t know,” she responds.

Er.

Turns out that she thought that I automatically wouldn’t be interested in her company.

“No, I cover all sorts of mobile things,” I explain. The trouble is, she’s not sold. She thinks I’m saying this just to let her down gently.

I try and reassure her.

“Genuinely, I cover a lot of subjects,” I say, but she’s not having it. We part company. She wouldn’t even give me her business card because she was convinced I wasn’t really interested.

Cut to conversation with VSC Consulting, the top mobile boutique PR chaps.

“I’m thinking of changing the site name,” I tell Vijay, “What do you think?”

“Definitely. Tomorrow,” he shoots back, without a moment’s thought.

Shit! Perhaps I really should change, I think.

“I’m going to ask the SMS Text News readers – those who’re interested, and see what they think,” I tell him.

Vijay breaks into a smile, “Ah yes, crowd-sourcing of the new brand, I like it!”

So here you are. You’re being crowd-sourced. If you can be arsed.

I’d like your feedback. I’m not doing a poll. I don’t think a poll is the way ahead. I think measured opinion.

I’m pretty much more than 50% up for changing the site name. In practice this will be an easy switch, particularly for the likes of those reading by RSS. You’ll see no difference. But for those visiting the site, it’ll mean a new brand, a new domain and so on. And a new poster at the Unlimited Drinks events. And new business cards.

The one thing I don’t really want, should we change the name, is to have it include ‘mobile’. There are far too many mobile sites out there. Far too many. Intomobile. Mymobile. Topmobile. Yourmobile. MobileCrunch. FutureMobile. MobileToday. MobileTheOtherDay. MobileFuture. MobileThis. MobileThat. MobileAgain. Twice removed.

For a few minutes I flirted with changing the site to www.ewan.net. I own that domain, conveniently. But I don’t think that is very relevant.

Although that being said, if we select something dotcommy, something web2-oh-ish, it won’t be that relevant.

Here is my question: Should I change the site name to something that doesn’t directly preclude covering anything that isn’t text messaging?

I’d appreciate your viewpoint. (Email or post below.)