Why not Slipstream? Getting the name right.
2010 January 11
Today I recieved an email from someone asking why I'd dropped the name Slipstream for WindowFlow and I thought it was worth blogging it:
- Doing a US trademark search turned up too many other technology related uses of the term Slipstream.
- There's already a software product out there with the name Slipstream and the .com domain is in use by it.
- In the MS Windows world, Slipstream is a technique used to update a Windows install disk with more recent patches and most web searches for Slipstream refer to this technique. Given how wide spread this is I thought it would be difficult to penetrate these search results.
- When I asked on the super helpful Mac Small Business mailing list the consensus was that it wasn't worth risking using the name and having to change it later. Here's a recent example of 37Signals having to drop their Haystack name for Sortfolio.
It was a tough decision to make, I was very attached to Slipstream, but with WindowFlow I've got the .com domain and it gives a stronger indication of being able to control and move windows in a flow, so I'm happy to settle on it.
