Yes, going to take care of that. Thanks for the heads up. I really looked that one over...didn't think too much of it as the domain was available. It's hard to do anything the easy way nowadays!
this is a good example of a preemptive design choice. it's almost always better to optimize for success today, not for success in the future. imo a name like "slab", or even literally "dumb tv" would be much more effective.
I think it needs just a bit of fool-proofing in a couple dimensions though:
(1) Ideally, the brand would also be able to speak to the segment of people who aren't going to get the wordplay.
(2) Also, there's the age-old pronunciation question. Is it just "Primitive"? Is it "Primi - Tee - Vee"?
It's quite close to being a great brand, though. I wonder if it just needs a skillfully-placed lowercase letter, or a couple dots, or something — maybe some sort of subtle variation could solve both problems.
Hi lagrange77, I like this name too. Thank you for the suggestion. It's a bummer that primi.tv is already taken, but I'm fairly optimistic that I can find another easy-to-remember domain. Also, I'll do some digging beforehand to make sure that I'm not overstepping any existing trademarks or copyrights. If everything works out, I'd like to give you one of these displays if and when I get the prototype unit off the ground. Would that be okay?
Hi pupdogg, thank you very much for the generous offer!
Actually, I don't own a TV, and besides, it would be the coolest story to tell when people ask me where I got this device. So I would like to gladly take you up on the offer IF you actually end up using the name, everything worked out as you hoped and you're in serial production.
I really like the design btw, clean, uniform bezels and logo-less. That's what i always look after for my computer displays.
According sources in the Wikipedia article about: idiot:
The word "idiot" comes from the Greek noun ἰδιώτης idiōtēs 'a private person, individual' (as opposed to the state), 'a private citizen' (as opposed to someone with a political office), 'a common man', 'a person lacking professional skill, layman', later 'unskilled', 'ignorant', derived from the adjective ἴδιος idios 'personal' (not public, not shared). In Latin, idiota was borrowed in the meaning 'uneducated', 'ignorant', 'common', and in Late Latin came to mean 'crude, illiterate, ignorant'. In French, it kept the meaning of 'illiterate', 'ignorant', and added the meaning 'stupid' in the 13th century. In English, it added the meaning 'mentally deficient' in the 14th century.
But who/what are you calling "idiot" and why? I would never think of calling that a plain HDTV set - it is still a technological marvel (and also would have all kinds of "smarts" built in anyway, just no apps or wifi).
maybe something like dumb.box ? I think the .box suffix might be very appropriate, something like brainless.box or whatever, I know it's unconventional though, perhaps .tv is better
I live self deprecating humour but it negatively affects me at work, I imagine dumb.tv or idiot.tv may have similar problems. But maybe also you go viral because of it, who knows.
GOTO no longer considered unsafe! (Actually, it never really was all that unsafe, anyway, the function guys just established themselves as the new programming hipsters...)
Not impossible to rank for. For example, see "stripe", or even my business, Keygen, which now ranks #1 for the term "keygen" after 7 years (funny fact: HN poked fun at me when I claimed I'd rank #1 for the term in my 2016 Show HN).
STANDARD is probably not the best choice for short-term SEO, though. :)
Kind of like framework laptop though. So while I agree search wouldn't be great to start, This isn't a TV for the masses if we're being honest. It will be high word of mouth and on niche tech sites.
Maybe consider picking another brand, sooner rather than later?
I like the name "dumbo", maybe coming from "dumb TV" and Jumbotron -- a nice, big TV/display without all the "smart TV" problems, and having fun naming something that's a bit of a cult niche -- but I also want your business to succeed.
(Disney has been putting their Dumbo on TV since at least the 1980s. I don't know whether there are other Dumbos, but I could imagine lawyer billable hours destroying your margin regardless of the theoretical defensibility. Also, separate from US govt. offices and courts, there's ICANN, and I guess you could suddenly lose your domain name that way.)
[1] https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/view/115...
[2] https://files.littlebird.com.au/Shared-Image-2023-04-08-06-5...