Googling, PayPaling and TiVoing Away
Amid my beaming pride for my book subjects Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Arrington* and Jay Adelson being named as a few of Time's 100 Most Influential People, I read something that annoyed me in Jay's write up and it has festered for days:
"For a web company, there may be no better definition of total, unconditional victory than seeing your name become a verb. So far, that club includes Google and...nobody else. But if you had to predict the next tech brand to make the leap, Digg would be a good guess."
Google is the only one??? First off, with more than a million users "Digging" stories, I'd give Digg verb status. And I'd say others have definitely made that leap. More than a hundred billion dollars are "PayPaled" around the Web every year, and a sportscaster on TV just made reference to "TiVoing" something. (OK, TiVo isn't pure Web. But was made possible by the Net's connectivity and a 1990s boom-baby so I'm counting it.) And what about "Oh, snap! I've been meaning to NetFlix that movie!" Any others I'm missing?
[*While there are several chapters devoted to Jay and Mark, truthfully, Arrington only shows up in a few brief scenes in the book. So if you are some crazed Arrington mega-fan, I don't want you to buy it and be disappointed.]
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Sarah Lacy is an award-winning reporter who has covered high-growth entrepreneurship for fifteen years. Based in Silicon Valley where she's a senior editor at TechCrunch, Lacy travels the world looking for great entrepreneurs.
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not purely web but "photoshop" has been a verb forever.
i've also heard lots of people say "i'll priceline it"... not a sexy one but i've heard it a bunch of times
Posted by: Arin Sarkissian | May 03, 2008 at 06:22 PM
never heard "pricelined" but photoshop is a GREAT one. my husband (a designer who lamely didn't think of that one!) notes that there's no other way to say "oh that photo has been totally photoshopped!" what- digitally altered?? that's true verb status.
Posted by: sarah lacy | May 03, 2008 at 06:26 PM
Skype, Twitter...
Posted by: Paul Karr | May 04, 2008 at 02:59 AM
The best example of this is in the 'real' world.
In the UK (don't know about elsewhere), people will STILL always say, "I'm doing the hoovering" rather than 'vacuuming' as it should be.
Skype me, twittered, photoshopped, IM'd, ftp'd. I think it's the new geek-speak to verb-up anything tech.
Posted by: Justin Fleming | May 04, 2008 at 08:20 AM
I thought of IM but it's not a brand name and i've never heard anyone say "I AIMed you" or "I meebo'd you"
good catch on skype, UK boys! i rarely hear that one. usually "hit me up on skype" instead. and no one here says hoovering!! i think the biggest non-tech one is xeroxing or fedexing in the US. I always like FedExing because I'm a memphis girl!!
Posted by: sarah lacy | May 04, 2008 at 09:17 AM
I read the Time's 100 list. I found who wrote the blurbs for the top 100 almost more interesting than who was actually on the list.
Writers included everyone from Desmund Tutu to Tina Fey. What I found interesting was Steve Jobs's blurb was written by a staff writer at Time. Even Steve Ballmer had Guy Kawasaki write his and Jeff Immelt had Conan OBrian give a nice personal story.
What no love for Steve Jobs... its not like he was a last minute addition... what gives?
Posted by: Peter LaMotte | May 04, 2008 at 09:35 AM