Web 2.0 Product and Domain-Naming -- from 1877
I came across a perspective-offering gem today while listening to the Writer's Almanac (Real Audio version).
It's the birthday of the man who gave us the Kodak camera, George Eastman, born in Waterville, New York. He was working at a bank when he got interested in photography around 1877. He took his first dry plate photograph the next year with the camera that he invented—a view of the building across the street from his window. He developed this little handheld camera, and he called it the Kodak because it was easy to remember, difficult to misspell, and it meant nothing, so it could only be associated with his product.
With company (i.e. domain) names always a hot issue, especially as they pertain to search reputation management, typo traffic, and owning the SERP for your company/product searches, it's quite interesting to hear similar philosophies dredged up from yesteryear.
Stories like this always make me happy that I'm not in charge of the search presence for the Hilton hotel in Paris.