Livingston

Jun
18
2007

Saying 2.0’s a Major No-No

stopsigncanadagander.jpgStop, please. The cliche has gotten out of hand. The moniker 2.0’s become an absolute joke that does not mean anything anymore. A Google Blog search conducted yesterday (June 17) on “2.0″ for the past week pulled 93,028 posts. I read 2.0 and pause right there to debate whether or not to bail on the post, marketing collateral, story or whatever it is.

Here are this week’s examples:

Maybe you can get away with it when you’re an established 2.0 brand such as Business 2.0 or the like. These folks were 2.0 when 2.0 was legit! Right, Business 2.0 (est. circa late last century, boys and girls)? But anything new (a la Jan. 1, 2007 and beyond) should never be monikered 2.0.

I would never counsel a client to put 2.0 at the end of a product, service or company name. It seems to me we are in the waning stage of a fad, similar to names that began with an e (a la eHarmony), an X (a la X-Box), .com (Pets.com), etc. To dub something “2.0″ now is bad PR, branding, marketing, or whatever else you want to call it.

“Webolution” (thank you, Michael Pranikoff for this coined word) is a process that will continue to develop, and move beyond current conceptions. Technological change will further impact us. What are they going to call the localized craze that’s sure to follow the GIS-induced geographic tie -into everything user generated? It’s best to create a brand name that meets the product’s value proposition to its community… as opposed to a cliche that’s stuck in a moment. Otherwise you’ll get hit with tens of thousands in re-branding costs.

Geoff is guestblogging this week at NXTcomm. You can read his posts at blog.tiaonline.org.

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by Geoff Livingston | Branding |

10 Responses to “Saying 2.0’s a Major No-No”

  • Andrea Morris Says:

    June 18th, 2007 at 10:46 am

    Well put Geoff! Although a fad is a sure sign that all this new stuff is being accepted by society - which I think is a good thing.

  • Kyle Says:

    June 18th, 2007 at 11:31 am

    LOL…I’m with you…but also too bad you aren’t here at Enterprise 2.0 (name withstanding), I’d buy you a drink.

    /kff

  • Valeria Maltoni Says:

    June 18th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    Geoff:

    I will stop using 2.0 if you think of a better way of saying “cutting edge” without actually saying it. That was the 2.0 after 1.0 — everyone used it. Pick up a brochure from any tech company or start up and you’ll see it there.

  • Geoff Livingston Says:

    June 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm

    Valeria, perhaps you are right, though in this case it was certainly a sarcastic “cutting-edge.” Note the double entendre there. Either way, cutting edge’s definitely got to have a longer cliche shelf-life than 2.0. Cutting edge actually means something.

    You bring up a good point, though. I think all marketers are guilty of cliched language use. Staying on top of appropriate language versus hype seems to be a constant battle as we try to define our value propositions to the marketplace.

  • Kami Huyse Says:

    June 18th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

    My biggest issue with 2.0 is that it really means nothing to anyone. I think that we really need to realize that this is an evolution, not a software package.

  • Engage in PR Says:

    June 19th, 2007 at 7:50 am

    [...] Check out the video of the conversation and Andrew McAfee’s follow up posting. I was struck at the overall thinking that ‘2.0 technologies’ will transform or revolutionize the enterprise (McAfee) and the thinking that social media is important but won’t fundamentally change the way we work and live (Davenport). I do agree with Davenport’s thinking that we don’t really need a new name for all of this, 2.0, or that this is a radically new version of enterprises. The moniker of 2.0 has always bothered me, as you all know, and I found this particular debate amusing in light of Geoff Livingstone terrific rant yesterday (and check out his blogging from NXTcomm). [...]

  • Wikis, RSS & Social Networking in Plain English « Write Ideas Marketing Says:

    July 2nd, 2007 at 9:51 pm

    [...] July 2, 2007 at 10:51 pm · Filed under social networking, new media, commoncraft, lee lefever, rss, blog, web 2.0, marketing, business, blogging Lee LeFever at Commoncraft has produced some excellent videos for those people who are new to this whole Web 2.0 thing (sorry, Geoff - I know I probably just killed a startup) [...]

  • The Buzz Bin » Blog Archive » Think Liquid Says:

    July 16th, 2007 at 5:14 am

    [...] However, as “webolution” continues, it will be increasingly important for marketers to avoid getting bedazzled by hot media forms. We’ve seen them come and go. Excite, Prodigy, AOL, and increasingly Yahoo! are huge brands of the past. Therefore, professionally we cannot get too focused on specific technologies. Why? Because they will evolve, change and in some cases disappear. Instead, marketers need liquid fluidity in their thought processes and approaches. [...]

  • Overhype Alert from Spin Thicket Says:

    November 3rd, 2007 at 12:00 pm

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] [...]

  • Why "3.0"? » The Buzz Bin Says:

    November 9th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

    [...] having to explain this horrific cliche to the masses. Then once everyone started messaging anything new as 2.0 it lost its value (image from F1 [...]

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