Snap Xoom NBCi

[Woz]

Anyone else catch the move from Snap to NBCi.com or am I out to lunch??

Woz

[perkoch]

They actually announced this move a couple of weeks ago. As far as I can see the Snap name has all but dissapeared from the new NBCi site. It is now officially the NBCi directory. The Live directory part was renamed the NBCi directory some time ago.

They now redirect the www.snap.com address to www.nbci.com or home.nbci.com, although the new site is still in beta.

I believe they are doing a big mistake. The Disney Go experiment shows how hard it is to start a new portal these days. They are also throwing away a trade mark, that was admittedly not that well known, but that had some loyal followers.

It's interesting to note that other companies are going in the other direction. Alta Vista are launching new sites like Raging, instead of intergrating them all under one umbrella.

[redzone]

Of course when you don't have to pay for your television advertising, you can throw a zillion ads against the eyeballs, and just start a whole new branding process?

What a waste of airtime. SNAP had a catchy name, and did have some branding through their advertising.. NBCi just sounds like some huge corporation. They aren't exactly appealing to the "average Joe", like SNAP was....

[rcjordan]

From the gist of the threads I've launched here and over at SEF, I seem to be one of Snap's biggest beneficiaries, so I'm not happy when anyone rocks the boat. But, looking at my referrals, I'd say that 60 or 70% came from the Snap co-branded sites such as USWest, perhaps there will not be too much impact.

[makemetop]

I landed one of my biggest contracts through a Snap referal and got regular, low but very focussed traffic. I too am interested to see what happens.

[tedster]

I agree with redzone -- SNAP was a much better name. It immediately sounded like they've been around forever and the name fit right in with the internet culture (whatever that is).

"NBCi" is way off the mark. Hard to believe somebody got paid (probably very well) for coming up with that one! For starters, it's four syllables. Second, it's cold, corporate and impersonal. Was the goal to appear like a ticker symbol?

I hate it when someone blows it so bad. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

[rcjordan]

No question about it, I expect that -among those of us who work the web daily- Snap is universally seen as the better identity for promotion and marketing purposes. But, assuming that someone from NBCi occassionally reads these threads, what would I do with it? I'd make Snap into NBCi's answer to the Raging/Google lean-mean interface.... have it both ways.

[Woz]

Well I guess I woz out to lunch on that one. However I agree with the general comments here about the move and change name.

From a marketing point they have shot themselves in the foot, perhaps even the head. Still, we'll see...

Onya
Woz

[rcjordan]

SF Chronicle article [sfgate.com]