What’s in a name?

I think Myxer is a really cool name. I have to admit to the possibility that I may be biased, and that does make me give pause to analyze my rationale. But come on – 5 letters, ‘x’ in the middle, connotations of being social with musical overtones – it’s a cool name!

When we named our company mVisible, we already had the name Myxer (along with MyxerTones) being used as our product name. But we weren’t really sure, at the time, that this first product of ours was going to be large enough to encompass all of the things we wanted to do with the company, so we were hesitant to make the company name and the product name one and the same.

There was a bigger issue with domain names that factored in heavily, as well.

Back in early 2005, the domain name mixer.com was owned by some cybersquatter who wanted tens of thousands of dollars for the domain. We were in pure startup mode, working out of my house without salaries, and we couldn’t justify paying more money than we had (!) for a domain name. We had myxer.com, of course, but there was always this worry that we would lose viral growth because people would tell their friends to “go to myxer.com”, but their friend would hear it as “mixer.com.” So, we often put a lot of emphasis on our sub-brands, like MyxerTones and MyxerTags. We owned the more popular phonetic spellings of those domains (mixertones.com, mixertags.com, etc), so there was less to worry about from a viral growth point of view.

Because it turned out that ringtones were the most used part of our platform, MyxerTones gained prominence. But because we didn’t want to be thought of (in the investment, mobile, and internet communities) as “a ringtone company,” we continued using mVisible whenever the corporate entity was being discussed. The platform stayed “Myxer”, so whenever we get airtime, we juggle between (1) mVisible, (2) MyxerTones.com, and (3) the Myxer platform.

This was a mistake. And continues to be a mistake.

From where we stand now, Myxer is undisputedly an extremely valuable platform. It delivers something like two ringtones, wallpapers, video clips, or songs every second of every day – and the volume is increasing month over month at something like a 30% rate. I really wish I could get statistics from other mobile content companies to compare this with, because I think we probably deliver more mobile content than anyone else in the world.

But more than a valuable platform, Myxer has become an extremely valuable brand. It is synonymous with simplified mobile content and services. This is a testament to its power and simplicity, because our marketing efforts have been decidedly inferior to our technological exploits, and we have abused and neglected the brand over the years as we dragged it behind mVisible as if it were somehow just a toy. But it’s clear now that the Myxer name is, in fact, big enough to encompass all that we are trying to do with our company.

To take us to the next level — to establish our platform and products as the de facto, undisputed, only way to mobilize your stuff — our platform, products, messaging, and our company itself all need to regroup around a single, unified, easy to understand brand. And in my mind, there is no rational choice for that brand other than Myxer.

To be continued…