Icebreaker: What’s in a name?
When I decided to release the free trial version of Fossil, I thought I will come up with an über cool name for it. Most free versions of applications in the iPhone app store have the same name as the paid version with a ‘Lite’ suffixed.
I wanted to lead the way, blaze a trail and break out of this monotony. So I came up with a cool name (or so I thought) for the free version of Fossil and called it Fossil-Icebreaker which I thought will make it stand out in the crowd.
Apparently not! Very few people seem to have gotten the ‘don’t-be-shy. Break-the-ice. Try-it-out’ message that I was trying to get across in the name.
Once Fossil Icebreaker disappeared from the first page of the recently released applications, the number of downloads per day dropped dramatically. That wasn’t totally unexpected. It was only when a couple of users got back to me saying ‘Thanks for the free trial version. I now realize why it is called ‘Icebreaker’ did I realize that there’s probably a lot in a name! When everyone is expecting a ‘Lite’ in the name, my fancy choice of name for the free version of my maiden app was probably working against it!
Now, it is possible that there are other reasons for this downward spiral, and I am no expert in reading the currents or trends in the app store sales. But I think, it’s better to be safe than smart-y!
Fossil Icebreaker will henceforth be called Fossil Lite!
October 12th, 2009 at 8:50 am
[...] have submitted a new version of Fossil Lite for review. As you may know already, we renamed Fossil Icebreaker to Fossil [...]
November 14th, 2009 at 4:44 am
Icebreaker – great name. You may just set a trend for naming free versions – “I tried the icebreaker.”
Also, I really appreciate companies that provide a free version that provides ALL the functionality of their full version and only limits the amount of data. This is the only reason I tried the free version of Fossil – and the only reason I paid for the full version. Thanks!
November 14th, 2009 at 8:00 am
I also thought it was a cool name
. Unfortunately I found the subtlety was wasted on most of the people.
Especially the meaning was getting lost in the translation.
Maybe I will switch back to the original name, once it becomes really popular.