I wish this had better branding. You can't say "just DuckDuckGo it". It has to have a single, or at most a double-syllable name that is easy to remember. Like Google or Bing.
But maybe it's part of some sort of strategy where in the early years the branding is weird in order to gain notoriety, and then change it when the timing is right.
I think right now this is probably slowing growth. I wonder how much would duck.com cost.
I wonder if we can’t just all move toward “search”. It’s usually obvious from context, and with more and more search engines (whether they be whole-web or isolated to a given social network), it seems like a viable alternative.
Maybe we should separate the ideas of the search space (the web) and our access to it (the search engine). The destinations will exist whether google or whoever points to them or not. By making that distinction more obvious it might encourage people, when selecting their search tool, to consider the effect of corporate bias on search results.
i personally think it would be best to get away from having to have a verb that matches the search engine name.
there are quite a few search options out there these days so telling someone they should specifically search with X when their favourite is Y is being a bit too pushy for my liking. (i still mention ddg sometimes if i think they are using google or something similar)
the other thing is that DuckDuckGo might not always be around or might not always be the best. some new shiney search engine might come along in a few years that is miles better but then everyone would have to start using a different verb when they were only just getting the hang of the last one.
with the old reliable "look it up" or "search for it" you dont have to worry about these problems.
and anyway, did google become the best search engine because it had a good noun or was it because of other reasons? i would personally just like to see DuckDuckGo just focus on making the best search engine they can. that way we wont have to rely on a noun being the only thing stopping it from succeeding. if its one the best people will find it regardless
It's hard to get attention of average people with a weird name like that and the logo. Not to mention the abbreviation even feels longer to say than Google fully.
But maybe it's part of some sort of strategy where in the early years the branding is weird in order to gain notoriety, and then change it when the timing is right.
I think right now this is probably slowing growth. I wonder how much would duck.com cost.