news Investor Sahar Sarid authors opinion about Alphabet

[BocaVision]

Mr. Sarid states his case -- a compelling 5 point opinion...

This is a follow-up post in a series of posts examining Google's new Alphabet name, what it means, what it tells us, how they come across. Agree or disagree? comment below.

With Alphabet, While Google was driven by serious Anti Trust allegations in creating this new structure, from branding perspective, they tried to come across as unconventional, young, edgy, and experimental. I don't think it works. I think people ultimately will see through it, and I think they whole branding aspect can be described in one word: Fail.

Let me explain.

1. Alphabet: I find it hard to come by another word that is as bas as Alphabet for Google, a word that borderlines totalitarianism, like Mega Corp or World Domination. While the word "Google" was cute when it was first introduced, "Alphabet", with a combination of their initial blog post "G Is For Google", implies ownership of every letter in the alphabet. This is completely counterproductive to the whole series of unfortunate events that got Google to be in this sad position to restructure their company (more on this in the next point). It basically says to the world that we are indeed a monopoly or at least, striving to be one by owning everything.

2. Timing: The timing of this whole restructure falls five days prior to EU anti trust investigation deadline given to Google. This basically says this was not an innovative move but more of a cowardly move to try and game the system before it's too late.

3. Hooli.XYZ reference: In their blog post the founders dropped an Easter egg and linked to Hooli.XYZ, what is known as the fictional startup in Silicon Valley, a TV series. Myself as the rest of the world are not familiar with the show and my only point of reference is the tech dominated Silicon Valley elite, a group of people who dominate the tech world. For a company who literally dominate much of the tech world to link to a fictional startup with same sorts of ambitions, I don't think it adds up and again, the message that comes across is of elitism, not entrepreneurship, experimental, unconventional, or what not.

4. Bumping into BMW: Google knew that the domain Alphabet.com, the one that the world will look up once they make their announcement, would be looked at. They also knew that once they make the announcement, the owners of Alphabet.com, in this case BMW, would suffer the consequences. Those consequences are vast, from web traffic issues crashing their servers, losing their brand identity, suffering confusion, and more. But Google had never reached out to BMW to inquire about the domain, they just went their own way and did whatever they wanted to do. What that caused is dozens of articles by now covering the BMW ownership of Alphabet.com and Google's lack of consideration to other brands when choosing a new brand to work with. Here, they again don't come across as innovative but rather dangerous, inconsiderate, selfish, and arrogant.

5. Choosing .XYZ: The registry is operated by Daniel Negari, a brave entrepreneur and a fellow domainer who took a bet on a new extension. Daniel is a controversial figure in the domain business with dozens of negative articles about the way the .XYZ registry had handled domain registrations, most notably the Network Solutions .XYZ domain name giveaway and the way the registry grows its numbers. In addition, the XYZ registry itself is in a fierce lawsuit with Verisign, the company which operates the .Com registry. By going with .XYZ, Google has placed themselves right in the middle of these ongoing issues where there's so much unknown and things can go south very quickly, either due to legal issues or because how the registry operates. Additionally, the XYZ registry is an aggressive marketer which likely not in line with how Google carries itself. This can again backfires as the registry may sometimes push the boundaries far more than Google's comfort (EG: acceptance of questionable content, spam, linkbaits, phishing, etc).

By the late registration of Alphabet.XYZ which was purchased only last week we know for a fact this was not a thoughtful naming process. Google put all this together in a very short time, almost as if they didn't have naming or branding experts helping them put it together. Or maybe, as my theory goes, we're dealing with eccentric billionaires who could just care less about their partners, shareholders, or consumers.

https://www.facebook.com/sahar.sarid/posts/1671203046446894


His previous post:

I had the whole night to think of Google’s move last night and here are my conclusions:

1. The split move is obviously nothing to do with domains. They are under allot of pressure in Europe and Asia and reorganizing will help them avoid some anti trust issues.

2. As far as the name “Alphabet”, it’s fine. Anything would be fine really. It’s a holding company, not a consumer facing company.

3. As far as domain extension goes, I have few theories.

A. They may have bought or invested in the .XYZ registry to operate some of their own new GTLD’s. Going with .XYZ could be a signal of what’s coming.

B. It’s a domain hack, not their new company name in another extension. This is important as it wasn’t the unavailability of .Com that drove the decision to go with .XYZ.

C. Why not go with Alphabet.XYZ (do they even own it?)

D. Why not go with XYZ.Com ?

4. Why did they brought up Hooli.xyz? Majority of the world have no clue about this tv series, I’m one of them. From what I can tell, SV elite type tv series, it’s a further way to distance yourself from the rest of the population.

I’m sure hey wanted to come across as edgy but the naming message, as strange as it is, is that they are unpredictable and irrational which makes them dangerous, not in a good way. This could have been made completely on purpose and nothing to do with naming in general with the one purpose to throw the EU to a tailspin.

But the more I think of it the more my conclusion comes to be that the top three partners are all eccentric billionaires. There is no logic, they feel they can do whatever they want and they do whatever they want, with or without regards to their shareholders, partners, or consumers.