How To Split An Atom

This article is not about Web 2.0 products, it won’t tell you how to SEO yourself to the top of the SERP, and it definitely will not provide you with any information that is even remotely useful. It is, however, a good read because I am going to let you in on a little secret — how to generate award winning, traffic driving, diggable, taggable and all-together perfect Web 2.0 names.

Pick your poison

Select a word out of a hat. It doesn’t even have to be remotely related to your business idea, in fact, if it is you are doing thing backwards. The entire point of Web 2.0 name generation is to create business models from the primordial goo — I hear that Flickr sold baseball cards back when it was named Pitchr.

Try to stick with concepts, objects, or action verbs. It doesn’t really matter what it is, but remember that you are eventually going to have to generate a pastel colored logo around this, so try to make it something easy to draw in photoshop.

For the sake of argument I am going to select “Running”

Write your business plan

No, I don’t actually mean that you should sit down and generate a viable business model. That is far too much work for something that comes out of Web 2.0. What I mean is that you should start thinking about the business model that you will eventually sit down and write (ahem). Try to come up with something that you can easily wrap Adsense around but sounds innovative. Also create a feature list that you and five of your friends think you might enjoy using, market analysis is for suckers.

Lets see, runners like track suits so what I am going to do is create an commerce platform that allows runners to tag their favorite clothing. Clothing, that they can later purchase from my amazon affiliates store! (I can just see the money rolling in)

Later they can rate their selections and vote them up using a digg-like system. I’ll also use a recommendation engine to show them other track suits they might like, and push them contextual video ads that align with their tastes. Genius.

You don’t really have to think that far ahead. Just try to get something written on a wordpad, it’ll really ease the business formation process.

Select your vowel

This might be the hardest part, for those who don’t yet understand, the core of any good Web 2.0 business is having a vowel that really speaks to the user. I mean, if iGoogle was uGoogle would you really use it? There is no symmetry there. This should be the longest step, just a bit longer than filling out the paper work for your company’s LLC.

I think “e” has been underused in recent months, lets use that.

Make your name

You’re almost done, by now you should have made the down payment on your new Porsche and quit your day job in a spectacular show of commitment to your hot new idea. Now it’s just about putting it together. It’s time to go to www.GoDaddy.com
and create your new baby, eRunning. Wait, that’s already taken? No problem! This is where Web 2.0 really helps you out. Who wants a boring name like eRunning when you can transform it into Web 2.0 gold.

First take Running, and transform into into Runner. Why am I doing this, just trust me for a second.

Finally, add the vowel back onto the front. Voila, eRunr.com is born.

[While writing this article, I didn't check to see whether eRunr actually exists, but if it doesn't it might be the next hot new web trend. I suggest squatting on it just in case.]