GreatNonStickPansSince1980: How's that for a brand name?

Businesses very often want their brand names to spell out their product/service. While it's not always a bad idea, getting fixated on this style of branding often leads us to very uninteresting names and sometimes even works at cross-purposes with the business.

A case in point is TinyURL.com. A website whose raison d'être is shortening URLs has a URL that is ELEVEN characters long!

If I shorten the link to this blog using TinyURL, I get http://tinyurl.com/lebj3y. If I use bit.ly, I get http://bit.ly/QyFOc. That's six characters saved. Now on platforms like Twitter where every character counts, it's not surprising that bit.ly scores over TinyURL.com.

On a slightly unrelated note, an NYT blogger cites some more reasons why bit.ly has found a haven at Twitter.