Contest to Rename CaRP Evolution Till January 31
by Antone Roundy | CaRP
A few days ago, I floated the idea on Twitter of renaming my flagship product, CaRP Evolution. I came up with the name "CaRP" years ago when I was still giving an early version away and hadn't even considered turning it into a commercial product (ie. when it didn't really matter whether it was a good name).
"CaRP" stands for "Caching RSS Parser". Now I want a name that not only is descriptive without knowing what it's an acronym for, but which emphasizes the benefits that matter to users more.
After I posted the idea on Twitter, Jewels999GreatE sent a great response -- hold a contest to rename CaRP! So that's what I'm going to do. Here are the rules:
- Entries must be posted on Twitter as replies to AntoneRoundy (ie. start your tweet with @AntoneRoundy). To prevent unscrupulous individuals from snatching up the domain name for your suggestion, instead of posting it in your tweet, click here to submit it. The form on that page will give you a unique link to paste into the body of your tweet -- this is how you'll be identified as the person who made the suggestion. Your tweet can contain whatever else you want.
- No more than 1 suggestion per person per week, with each week beginning at 1:00am GMT on Sundays. If the best suggestion violates this rule, the prize will be awarded to the next best suggestion, so make your suggestions count! (I'll be keeping track of suggestions as they're posted, so don't try deleting old tweets if you come up with a new idea!)
- If multiple people suggest the same name, the person who suggested it first wins.
- The name can't already be in use by another product!
- Suggestions must be tweeted by midnight GMT on January 31.
- The best name will help communicate what CaRP is to someone who's never heard of it and who has at best a vague idea of what an RSS parser or RSS to HTML converter is.
- I reserve the right to update the rules if an obvious need for another rule arises. Updates (if any) will appear in the comments for this post.
I'll announce the winner sometime during the first week of February.
[...] you to everyone who participated in the contest to rename CaRP Evolution. I got a lot of great suggestions. Last night, I picked my five favorites, added an idea of my own [...]Oh, you want to know what the winner gets? Let's make this fun and award three prizes -- 1st place gets their choice of any three of my products, 2nd place gets any two, and 3rd place gets any one! (I may actually use a name that I think of myself, but I'll still award all the prizes).
January 7th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Hi Antone
What a fantastic idea and the one tweet a week is also a great method of getting some really good suggestions
Best
Jim
January 7th, 2009 at 10:43 am
BTW, I'm going to be giving Jewels999GreatE some sort of prize for suggesting the contest too...gotta do some other work before deciding what.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:54 am
The contest is void where taxed or prohibited. I'm not sure where that is though...I guess I'll have to find out.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Antone,
CaRP is a great name! The comparison between the fish, which constantly gathers food, and your utility, which constantly gathers news (food for thought) is positively inspired.
If you change it, the new name will have to be absolutely exceptional!
January 7th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
To prevent unscrupulous individuals from snatching up the domain names for the good suggestions, the submission method has been changed (I've updated the instructions above, so if you've read the latest in the body of the post, you don't need to read this comment). If you've already submitted, you may delete your Tweet and resubmit if you wish, but it's not required:
* Go to http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/rename-carp.php
* Submit your suggestion in the form on that page
* You'll be shown a unique URL -- copy it and paste it into Twitter in a response to AntoneRoundy (ie. begin your tweet with @AntoneRoundy and include the URL that you're given somewhere in the tweet.)
I'd love to be able to leave all the suggestions out in the open for everyone to see, but unfortunately, there are people in this world that make that problematic. Once the contest is over, I'll publish at least a bunch of the good suggestions with links to the Twitter pages of the people who submitted them.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Contests are tricky things to successfully pull off online. You may want to read up on the legalities you may face. http://xr.com/contests
Also, please stop referring to domainers as 'squatters.' I know quite a few fellow domain owners that actually promote your software.
What happens if the perfect name for your software is already registered? Not going to use it? You'll just end up re-naming your software again. Using the domain name you really want to use is a very empowering thing.
Glad you're renaming CaRP though. Not only did it not make sense as a brand, but the upper/lower case was really confusing. Anyway good luck @AntoneRoundy.
Respectful regards,
@LIVEdomainer
January 7th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Thanks for the feedback and information Jamie.
When I say "squatters", what I'm talking about is anyone who'd watch a contest like this and snatch up domains for any good suggestions they see with the intent of trying to sell the winner to me for some ridiculous price. In my mind, that's a lot different than thinking up good domain names yourself, registering them, and seeing if you can make a profit off them (which can be done in multiple ways to which I'd certainly have no objection).
I've updated the post and my earlier comment to use language that more precisely conveys the point I was attempting to make.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
* The odds of winning depend on the number of entries received and your skill at coming up with a good name.
* You don't have to follow me on Twitter to win.
* Where applicable, the winner will get a single user license to the product.
* If the winner selects a prize that usually requires a periodic subscription fee (eg. $X per month...), the prize will be one free year of service.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:09 am
I'm from the UK... I personally think that the competition you've got is a great idea. I've come to this page to enter and suddenly found your middle name is scrooge.
Someone may have the best idea in the world and all you are prepared to give them is one of your products. Pretty lame I think.
You'll probably delete this.
You've got CaRP in the top 10 of Google all over the place and you want to change the name?
I guess it must be a pet project, perhaps something evolving from the ego. If you have spare energy develop another product.
Don't be a scrooge... Plus... Don't re-invent the wheeel, invent something that hovers!
Andy
January 8th, 2009 at 8:37 am
[...] I got their newsletter where creator Antone Roundy is looking to rebrand CaRP. Good idea, since the current name is probably cryptic to the average [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Andy,
Actually my middle name is Eric, and the winner is getting three products :-). I won't begrudge anyone not participating if they feel that's not a big enough prize.
I thought about this for a while before deciding to change the name, because as you say, the CaRP name is fairly well established. Here's my thinking:
1) I won't simply delete any of the CaRP webpages -- I'll either put links on them to the new product's pages or use permanent redirects, which would pass the benefit of any existing links to the new pages.
2) If people who know the CaRP name go looking for it, it will be easy enough to let them know the name has changed and point them to the new webpages.
3) If people who don't know the CaRP name go looking for an RSS to HTML converter or a script to automatically add content to their pages or a script to insert their latest blog posts into pages all over their website or whatever they want a script like CaRP for, "CaRP" isn't going to jump out at them as the name of a solution to their problems.
I expect that far more of my future sales are going to go to people who've never heard of CaRP than to people who already have. That's why I think it's worth the trouble of changing the name to something that communicates what the product is for more effectively. I guess we'll see whether I was right soon.
By the way, I am working on several new products, and have a million more ideas that I'll be moving onto once they're done. Renaming CaRP isn't going to affect the schedule of other projects all that much.
January 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Oh! No! Please do not change the name. It will be a pain to rename and / or reinstall all the folders, files, functions, commands and everything for existing users. And most likely, at some point, we have to pay for it under the 'new' name. If that is the case, we can pay you for the 'new' release. Just keep the same name so that we don't need to rename and /or reinstall everything. PLEASE!!!
January 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
TG,
Don't worry, although for example, the name of carp.php will change to something else, I'll be creating a new file named carp.php containing functions with all the same names as the one's you're using which will simply call the renamed functions. It'll be a teensy weensy bit slower (probably entirely unnoticable), and will provide backwards compatibility for the majority of uses.
You'll be able to upload the new files into your existing "carp" folder, so except in rare cases, you won't have to make any adjustments to the code in your webpages.
If your code is doing things like accessing $carpconf directly (rather than using the CarpConf function), then you might have to make a few adjustments, but I'm sure I can make those sorts of problems rare.
I'm not quite sure I've understood your comment about paying for it under the new name correctly, but in case I have, I'll respond. When the name changes, the update will be free to all version 4.x users. It'll probably be released as "NewName 4.1".
January 8th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Antony,
It's a very bad business strategy to rename an existing product in production. There are very few cases where that has succeeded, and quite frankly your reasons don't justify the change.
A better approach would be to have an end Of Life strategy for CaRP, and develop a similar yet superior product under the new name. If you want to have backwards capability to CaRP that's OK, but not absolutely neccessary.
Either way you choose, I wish you continued success. I just would hope you reconsider this proposed name change.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Antone,
Great idea! Although I get the CaRP name now many people don't. It does tend to conjur up visions of ugly, garbage eating fish. A great product should have a great name and it's time for a re-branding of CaRP. Best of luck to all but especially me in the contest:)
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:12 am
[...] you to everyone who participated in the contest to rename CaRP Evolution. I got a lot of great suggestions. Last night, I picked my five favorites, added an idea of my own [...]