If you’re constantly worried about mispronouncing people’s names, and you want to join a community of people with the same affliction, Namez might just be the next big social media app in your life. The piece of software is launching today on web browsers after a period in beta. The pronunciation social network may not be for everyone, but it seems to be making some kind of waves across the web-media this morning.
The idea behind Namez is simple, though it may not be headed for the next big round of VC funding. The web platform allows users to upload sound clips of them pronouncing names. Users who want to learn how to pronounce the same name can then do a text search on the application and, hopefully, come up with a more accurate way of saying it out loud.
Namez teaches pronunciation to those too embarrassed to ask
There are certain situations where getting the pronunciation of a name wrong is a major faux pas. Dealing with business colleagues from another country is a particularly important example, though there are other times when one would wish for the ability to correctly say a particular name. Asking the correct pronunciation is apparently the wrong course of action, and Namez is there to offer an alternative.
If something of importance rests on the correct pronunciation of a name, it’s not usually all that difficult to figure out the pronunciation. The Namez platform appears to be aimed at those that want to share the pronunciation of their names rather than those that actually want to learn the names of other people. That appears to be the general basis of much social networking, with sharing a more desired activity than being shared with.
Socially awkward social network
Namez may be the novelty social network of the day, but just because analysts are talking about a world with many different successful social networks doesn’t mean a startup like Namez is likely to be successful. Should the company collect enough data to form any sort of monetization strategy, the ease of implementing its idea seems to make it simple for a company like Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to emulate.
Over the next decade social networks of many shapes and sizes are likely to pop up and invade the popular consciousness. Those like Namez, which offers a solution to a problem very few have, are likely to drift away about as soon as they appear, but some will stick around, or be bought out by bigger firms for extraordinary sums. Perhaps Namez will be the next $20 billion acquisition by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).
