re: Hornets247 Rebrands to Bourbon Street Shots

quote:

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I'm not here to pile on, honestly, and I understand your explanation. But, to me, there are three problems: 1) personally, I'm not sure I'd like the name regardless of the context, type of site or its content; 2) the name has no clear relationship to basketball (yeah, I know . . ."shots" . . .but no) and 3) exacerbating problem 2 is that BBS actually misleads potential readers to think of specific things other than basketball as being on the site, e.g., a review of bars, comments from Bourbon Street, etc.

Of course, good content is much more important, and perhaps we'll all get used to it.

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Those problems are real, but they are not without qualification.

First, there is no accounting for taste, really, and as you said, time will likely make any name, good or bad, a nonissue if the content is there.

Second, if the name actually was the thing that attracted people to sites, that would be a bigger issue. Search engines are more tied to content, and bookmarks are just buttons. Tweets etc. get to people from others they follow and perhaps trust, and that is likely a bigger factor than the name itself.

Third, a number of basketball sites do not bear a direct basketball relationship in the name more than "shots," such as perchedinthelane.com, which is not ambiguously about basketball or pelicans or new orleans or the nba either.

It's not an easy problem, and I appreciate someone producing an actual available name. It's not easy.

As far as pelicansreport goes, not everyone needs to follow the same advice since those sites are different. In fact, it's more like Hornets Talk than just about anything else. There is a ton of difference in how those sites operate in the world.

Just to repeat since the thread is getting long: I'm not advocating for the name. I'm just discussing the genesis. No big deal. I don't expect everyone to like it. It is doing very well with readers, which was goal number one.

I'm pretty sure Pelicans247 would not receive warm welcome in general if the previous name were not Horents247.

edited for dickbaggery

Not really.

I don't care if people who have already chosen to not read don't like the name. How it would affect the large number of people who might read one day is of more interest, as is the opinion of people who have chosen to read.

This choice seems to correlate highly with opinion of the name, indicating that is really is quite neutral in aggragate: it did not sway many in either direction.

I do like discussing the 'puzzle' that is rebranding. Again, I have not tried to change anyone's mind or laud the name. Just answered why to those discussing. I didn't bring it up, either, but it was a reasonable discussion, I felt.