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Rebranding Followup

Oh boy, now whenever I hear the so called experts talking seriously about money I will point them out to this brand issue. Humanity is sooo predictable.
If investors are scared by the name, then it is easy to draw the conclusion. They are a bunch of cowards and idiots without any short-term or long-term vision. I'm not a member of that group, of course *sticks chest out proudly*.

The situation can be summed up with this discussion:
- Evan: Hey, guys. You know about all those repositories you have been working on?
- Board of devs: Yes, we do.
- Evan: Good. (Greedy) Investors want us to ditch the original name and start fresh, so we will rename them all. Surprise!
- Board of devs: Yay! Hooray for them!

Did you honestly think that would be the reaction? I surely hope not. People tend to get attached with their work. It is called sensitivity, an irrational human feeling most of us tend to fall easily into. The cold truth is that investors do not care about a name or what it stands for. Tthe most important proprietary computer manufacturer in China is solely based in pure advertising, for frigging sake.

Let's get this straight. Online payment sytems suck big time. It is the most burocratic network you will stumble upon: exasperating long times of transactions, paleolithic web design, insufferable navigation, comissions for each operation (adjusted by someones' whim at the end of the month), micropayments are prohibitive, etc. etc. If you use DRK or BTC, there is no going back. However, there are pending issues:
  • The conflict between technology and brand has not been solved since the beginning. Don't treat the symptoms as a regular quack that leaves the body of the patient with all the pernicious side effects. You need to find the cause or nothing will ever change. A compromise between them must be achieved as soon as possible. Either DarkCoin/DRK or whatever is associated with the underlying tech and other name for the ecosystem or viceversa (e.g. the Trisquel distro and the GNU Linux kernel).
  • Users do not deal with standards or manuals. Concepts like DarkSend should be not shown in the UI (a untraceability level -high, medium, low- should be more than enough). The same could be said for any technical term.
  • Do you want a bigger user base? OK then, internationalization is mandatory for that purpose. The main website needs an overhaul. Visitors can see there is not a lot of movement in the subforums, and that's an understatement.
  • How do you get (earn, buy or sell) coins easily? Exchanges are the first point of contact. Do you have plans for a DRK bike, guys? Your grandma is not going to use cryptocurrency software at this stage. End of the story. Old people are not going to "mix coins".
  • The quantity of software available is large. Three clients (the official DRK QT wallet and two lightweight versions: darkcoil and the multi-coin wallet called encompass), different public ledger explorers (chainz, explorer.darkcoin.io, blockchains.io) and administration apps (drk.mn, darkcoind-ncurses). Custom configurations should be easily tailored to the user profile. For instance, a demo can be launched with an InstantX and instant setup with only a few clicks. Are you interested in a privacy configuration? Get a usb stick with your favorite linux distro. And so on...
Keep the focus on what's important right now. Small community is a synonym of realistic point of view. Oh, an I agree with the main point of the original post: "There is a lot of potential for aggressive expansion."

Just my two duffs.
 
UdjinM6 said:
Few things from btct:
"DAPS( Digital Anonymous Payment System)"
I like shift to "Payment System" from "Coin" or even from "Cash"
"sending money would then be dapping"
Also like that part.

and just for fun: DARPASYS (Digital Anonymous Reliable PAyment SYStem) (yes, it's DARPA inside;))
Click to expand...
...Trying desperately to catch up.:confused:
Hope to add something truly more constructive later. FWIW--DARPA holds some potential.:tongue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA
 
Nice trolling there Duffman (Evan not that poster above I just noticed), shake em unbelievers out. - I would buy Wankcoin if it was made by DarkTeam :tongue:

Oh and so much fun past 24h .. even the name rage was hilarious and .. thanks for the avatar .. heh :what:
 
Varvarin said:
Nice trolling there Duffman (Evan not that poster above I just noticed), shake em unbelievers out. - I would buy Wankcoin if it was made by DarkTeam :tongue:

Oh and so much fun past 24h .. even the name rage was hilarious and .. thanks for the avatar .. heh :what:
Click to expand...
Duffman made some good points, stop trying to divide us, I can see what you are doing.
 
My two duffs: Keep the D logo, it is well recognized, and inoffensive; also keep the conjoined IX logo of instant exchange, it is both descriptive and elegant from a design perspective. DX is often a designator for products associated with quality, and also rapid long-distance communication (DIX is an option here but could be confused with a sexual slur—of course in that regard it is no worse than “Space Exploration Technology Corp. usually referred to as SpaceX—a term that always causes my children to snicker.)

If a way can be found to incorporate an L, you could have “DLX” or “DeLuXe” or simply DeluXe, using the D and IX symbols. Deluxe by the way means : of special elegance, sumptuousness, or fineness; high or highest in quality, luxury, etc. (personally I like that it derives from the Latin “of/from light.”)

These are just ideas for consideration—but I also wholeheartedly endorse Evan’s idea of hiring a professional marketing firm with branding expertise.

FWIW; another def. of Deluxe: of better quality and usually more expensive than the usual ones of its kind : very luxurious. Sounds like our coin to me! :cool:
 
If we need to change the name, ahhhh Darkcoin, it sounds soooo good, I`d be for: DigiCash
 
i feel for the people who feel emotional about changing a name they have come to love, but Evan is right - businesses won't touch 'Darkcoin' and the average person thinks it's dodgy just from the name.

Dash is very clever name, it conveys 3 things:

1. anonymity because cash is anonymous, Bitcoin isn't

2. digital, so average person can get that it's internet currency

3. it's quick - which is our real Bitcoin killer app isn't it??? (coupled with not having the 7-transaction per second limit of bitcoin)

Comon people this is our chance to take on Bitcoin and still deliver all the libertarian side - but to stay on top we have to be business and market friendly this is just reality!!! :D
 
AndyDark said:
i feel for the people who feel emotional about changing a name they have come to love, but Evan is right - businesses won't touch 'Darkcoin' and the average person thinks it's dodgy just from the name.

Dash is very clever name, it conveys 3 things:

1. anonymity because cash is anonymous, Bitcoin isn't

2. digital, so average person can get that it's internet currency

3. it's quick - which is our real Bitcoin killer app isn't it??? (coupled with not having the 7-transaction per second limit of bitcoin)

Comon people this is our chance to take on Bitcoin and still deliver all the libertarian side - but to stay on top we have to be business and market friendly this is just reality!!! :D
Click to expand...

+1
 
ANAEDV said:
I think the name eCash would work well, it’s simple and explains exactly what Darkcoin is about (electronic cash). I’ve seen a few community members mention this name whenever discussions about renaming have happened and for me this would be perfect.
What Milton Friedman predicted is essentially what Darkcoin has become:
Can anyone think of any reason why this name couldn’t be used?
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash
 
duffman said:
Oh boy, now whenever I hear the so called experts talking seriously about money I will point them out to this brand issue. Humanity is sooo predictable.
If investors are scared by the name, then it is easy to draw the conclusion. They are a bunch of cowards and idiots without any short-term or long-term vision. I'm not a member of that group, of course *sticks chest out proudly*.

The situation can be summed up with this discussion:
- Evan: Hey, guys. You know about all those repositories you have been working on?
- Board of devs: Yes, we do.
- Evan: Good. (Greedy) Investors want us to ditch the original name and start fresh, so we will rename them all. Surprise!
- Board of devs: Yay! Hooray for them!

Did you honestly think that would be the reaction? I surely hope not. People tend to get attached with their work. It is called sensitivity, an irrational human feeling most of us tend to fall easily into. The cold truth is that investors do not care about a name or what it stands for. Tthe most important proprietary computer manufacturer in China is solely based in pure advertising, for frigging sake.

Let's get this straight. Online payment sytems suck big time. It is the most burocratic network you will stumble upon: exasperating long times of transactions, paleolithic web design, insufferable navigation, comissions for each operation (adjusted by someones' whim at the end of the month), micropayments are prohibitive, etc. etc. If you use DRK or BTC, there is no going back. However, there are pending issues:
  • The conflict between technology and brand has not been solved since the beginning. Don't treat the symptoms as a regular quack that leaves the body of the patient with all the pernicious side effects. You need to find the cause or nothing will ever change. A compromise between them must be achieved as soon as possible. Either DarkCoin/DRK or whatever is associated with the underlying tech and other name for the ecosystem or viceversa (e.g. the Trisquel distro and the GNU Linux kernel).
  • Users do not deal with standards or manuals. Concepts like DarkSend should be not shown in the UI (a untraceability level -high, medium, low- should be more than enough). The same could be said for any technical term.
  • Do you want a bigger user base? OK then, internationalization is mandatory for that purpose. The main website needs an overhaul. Visitors can see there is not a lot of movement in the subforums, and that's an understatement.
  • How do you get (earn, buy or sell) coins easily? Exchanges are the first point of contact. Do you have plans for a DRK bike, guys? Your grandma is not going to use cryptocurrency software at this stage. End of the story. Old people are not going to "mix coins".
  • The quantity of software available is large. Three clients (the official DRK QT wallet and two lightweight versions: darkcoil and the multi-coin wallet called encompass), different public ledger explorers (chainz, explorer.darkcoin.io, blockchains.io) and administration apps (drk.mn, darkcoind-ncurses). Custom configurations should be easily tailored to the user profile. For instance, a demo can be launched with an InstantX and instant setup with only a few clicks. Are you interested in a privacy configuration? Get a usb stick with your favorite linux distro. And so on...
Keep the focus on what's important right now. Small community is a synonym of realistic point of view. Oh, an I agree with the main point of the original post: "There is a lot of potential for aggressive expansion."

Just my two duffs.
Click to expand...

Duffman you have some interesting points in your post but with this:
If investors are scared by the name, then it is easy to draw the conclusion. They are a bunch of cowards and idiots without any short-term or long-term vision. I'm not a member of that group, of course *sticks chest out proudly*.
Click to expand...

....goodness; I think you have the wrong idea altogether.

This whole discussion is not about a group of investors who are "cowards and idiots" and you needing to "stick (your) chest out proudly" to demonstrate you're not part of such a group.

The essence of the overall exercise in looking to undergo a name change is that "Darkcoin" isn't a name that will ever achieve widespread adoption because it's too suggestive of the currency being involved in nefarious or illegal activities. Mainstream businesses, institutions and organisations simply won't adopt and use it because it sounds like they'd be supporting Silk Road-style online criminal activity which is completely unacceptable for public companies and mainstream commercial enterprises.

With a different name that's more universally acceptable to law abiding people who wouldn't even look at a dark market website, let alone purchase something there, we're opening ourselves up to adoption on a scale infinitely above what we'd achieve as a dark market focussed crypto.

That's what it's about.
 
eduffield said:
Hello Everyone,

I wanted to just follow up with the rebranding discussion that the community has been having since I posted yesterday and clarify some misconceptions that are going around in the community.

First thing is, the name change isn’t final. We’re opening this up to discussion by the community, the only thing that’s known at this time is the name “Darkcoin” has some negative perception by businesses we’ve reached out to. They’ve said, it’s not the privacy centric nature of the product, but the name that is unfortunate.

The name “Dash” was recommended by the community some time ago. We picked up on that and the foundation began investigating the use of it and found a trademark application. The whole reason we’ve acquired the rights, was not because the decision was final, but because we need to challenge that trademark application to even be able to use the name, otherwise it’s a complete non-starter.

We’re absolutely open to everyone’s input and always have been. We would like this process to be 100% transparent as possible. In the community supports it, I would support hiring a firm to handle the rebranding for us. We could allow the firm to engage directly and transparently with the community, then have foundation members vote on the final decision.

Originally when the community started talking about rebranding months ago, we also began talking about it internally. It’s obvious that we missed something in the process and I’d also like to apologize on behalf of myself and the foundation’s board for this.
Click to expand...

Why not just DCOIN! Or how about to hire a company to help in re-do it.
 
djcrypto said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash
Click to expand...

Hmm... I noticed they don't use a capital E, not sure if that makes a difference. So the patents for that digicash ecash concept are now owned by Bluecora.. but there doesn't seem to be a company called Ecash and also when they tried to implement ecash they called it Digicash. (ecash was essentially the concept from what I understand, its easy to protect company names, product names, but concepts? Implemented differently?...)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
DCOIN that way we do run from logo or any thing like that. And also the name suggest "The" coin. But if guys decide to hire a company I will be more the happy to help with some donations.
 
eduffield said:
Hello Everyone,

I wanted to just follow up with the rebranding discussion that the community has been having since I posted yesterday and clarify some misconceptions that are going around in the community.

First thing is, the name change isn’t final. We’re opening this up to discussion by the community, the only thing that’s known at this time is the name “Darkcoin” has some negative perception by businesses we’ve reached out to. They’ve said, it’s not the privacy centric nature of the product, but the name that is unfortunate.

The name “Dash” was recommended by the community some time ago. We picked up on that and the foundation began investigating the use of it and found a trademark application. The whole reason we’ve acquired the rights, was not because the decision was final, but because we need to challenge that trademark application to even be able to use the name, otherwise it’s a complete non-starter.

We’re absolutely open to everyone’s input and always have been. We would like this process to be 100% transparent as possible. In the community supports it, I would support hiring a firm to handle the rebranding for us. We could allow the firm to engage directly and transparently with the community, then have foundation members vote on the final decision.

Originally when the community started talking about rebranding months ago, we also began talking about it internally. It’s obvious that we missed something in the process and I’d also like to apologize on behalf of myself and the foundation’s board for this.
Click to expand...
Evan...your on the right track. Being the leader of a project or business is tough and you have to make many tough decisions. I do daily. There is always a cause and effect...

... making hard decisions and sticking with it even if it's not popular is the mark of a truly good leader. Go with your gut... Consult those around you that you trust and be clear and decisive.

There is no path that you can take now that you won't lose some people... It's unfortunate but the bigger picture is what should be your guiding light.

There are many many peeps, what I call the silent majority that believe in what you want to accomplish. Cheers!
 
coinBR said:
DCOIN that way we do run from logo or any thing like that. And also the name suggest "The" coin. But if guys decide to hire a company I will be more the happy to help with some donations.
Click to expand...

sorry bro, but:

Is it only my impression that some new-comers specially direct us to the wrong way? :wink:
 
alex-ru said:
sorry bro, but:

Is it only my impression that some new-comers specially direct us to the wrong way? :wink:
Click to expand...

Looks like, here in Brasil everywhere I try to talk about darkcoin people don't like the name and most of them get the impression that is ilegal (black-market). We are investing a lot in mining and also in developing a payments system so the market could also accept DRK. We are complete behind DRK, and I hope that I can help more.
 
Forget consultants in my opinion, waste of time and money. Thats a terrible idea in my opinion, except if you pay him only once the job is done and you are satisfied... lol we wish! First you get a consultant, then you get another consultant who knows better than the first consultant... Then a team of consultants convince you they can do even better for you etc...
 
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