Geeksphone closes up shop as founders turn their eyes to wearables Spanish smartphone startup Geeksphone is winding down operations and will not pursue any future mobile phone projects. "Geeksphone has always worked for its users, trying to listen to their needs, in order to bring innovation, freshness, quality, style and to differentiate their mobile devices," the company said in a statement …
* Embarrassingly stupid brand name. Who wants to self-identify as a 'Geek'?
* The hardware was perceived as being low-end and a couple of years out of date
* All the reviews said Firefox OS was barely usable
Not really the best foundation from which to attempt breaking into an already over-saturated market
Geek when you're speaking Spanish is just someone who's really interested in technology, it doesn't come loaded with all the other meanings that the English original has. As soon as you go international, it becomes a rather poor choice of name.
I don't think they're going to get out the hole they're in by changing their name to geeks!me and selling sports wearables.
Which is why people should stick to their own languages when trying to come up with brand names. I remember buying a bag of satsumas once, which had the brand name 'Teenager' –presumably because some marketing twonk at the parent company thought is was a dynamic English name.
Still, at least Geeksphone only finished second in the competition for The Most Excruciatingly Embarrassing Use of English in a Phone Brand Name
What about "Geek Chic"? It seems like every US TV series nowadays has a "cool geek", often a "hacker". I know in real life it's not likely to be a good thing to be seen as a geek in school, for example, but I'm sure plenty of hipsters, designers and those who work in fields around the periphery of IT (rather than those at the heart who may not care to "look cool") would like to be thought of as "geeks" in some way.
Not to say that the market isn't limited at all by the name -- just that I don't think there's a stigma attached to being a "geek" any more.
This post has been deleted by its author
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
