Hello!
And welcome to the first edition of our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
So Sprint Nextel released a new phone from LG called the “Fusic.” The name of the phone comes from a combination of the words “fun” and “music.” (The reasoning—and I’m just guessing here—is that the phone plays music and is fun.)
Allow me to employ a similar trick to describe what I think of the name of Sprint Nextel’s new Fusic music phone: Craptacular. (It’s a combination of the words “crap” and “spectacular.” Clever, huh?)
The worst part? My friends over at PhoneScoop say that LG is going to give more of its phones short, catchy names like Fusic. Here’s hoping we see a “Cellrific” phone by the fourth quarter!
To be fair, Fusic is better than what Sprint Nextel was previously naming their phones: “Sprint Power Vision Multimedia Phone MM-7500 by Sanyo,” for example. I want to vomit with rage at how ridiculously long and silly that name is.
But really I’m not trying to pick on the kind folks over at Sprint Nextel and LG. After all, I would love to get a Fusic review unit to play with (hint hint). (Update : Sprint Nextel says they’re sending me a Fusic review unit when they become available! I love the Fusic!)
But the Fusic is symbolic of the whole “phone naming” mess that we currently find ourselves in. Motorola has a hit with the Razr, but I’m betting that phone would still be a hit even if it were called the “Motorola Super Slim Multimedia Phone AS&23234-ASF55 by Motorola” or something.
Really, the whole handset industry needs a stiff drink and a slap in the face. For example, the Nokia executives I’ve met repeatedly referred to their phones as “mobile devices.” If you were to tell someone you just bought a new “mobile device,” they might think you’re talking about a bomb in a briefcase.
And even worse than “mobile devices,” Nokia has started to call its N-series line of phones “multimedia computers.” There’s nothing that rolls off the tongue quite like “multimedia computers.”
But Nokia doesn’t have a monopoly on silly, overly techy designations for its phones. Samsung calls its smart phones “mobile intelligent terminals” I am not making this up. I’m assuming “mobile intelligent terminals” came out of Samsung’s R&D department, because only the most lame, dorky, geeky engineer would EVER call a phone a “mobile intelligent terminal.” I mean, come on, Fusic sounds better than that.
Motorola’s Ed Zander has begun calling the company’s Razr “the device formerly known as the cell phone.” Sure, it’s a catchy proclamation—likely designed to wow the hordes of investment bankers tracking the company’s every move—but it just sounds a little forced. And I’m betting that, if Mr. Zander ever misplaced his Razr, he wouldn’t go around asking for “my device formerly known as my cell phone.” Or maybe he would … what do I know?
The point is that most regular people are not fooled by marketing departments and million-dollar advertising budgets, nor are they fooled by cutesy names. People are not going to be fooled into thinking that just because the name of Motorola’s new smart phone consists of one single, simple letter—Q—that it’s easy to use. (That thing runs Microsoft’s operating system; trust me, it is NOT easy to use.)
So here’s my advice for you handset fellers: STOP WITH THE STUPID NAMES. It’s a freaking cell phone. Every single person in the United States calls them “cell phones”—the guy at the gas station, your neighbor, that idiot at the bank—everyone. Everyone. So if you have to give it a model number, so be it, but please don’t try to rename “the device that is still a cell phone to everyone but you.”
OK! Enough of that. Thanks for checking out this first Worst of the Week column.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com.
