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Ask HN: Capitalize Internet brand name or not?

2 points by fiddle ↗ HN
This may be somewhat trivial, but I'm wondering whether to go with a capitalized or lowercase brand name. Examples of lowercase brands: facebook, msn, amazon, twitter, craigslist, hulu. Capitalized brands: Google, YouTube, WordPress, PayPal.

3 comments

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JayNeely
Most of the lowercase brand names you mentioned are only lowercase in their logo. Facebook, MSN, Amazon, Twitter, and Hulu all use a capitalized name on their own site when written in non-graphical text.

It's all about what image you want to present. Lowercase can seem more friendly and casual. If you have a two-word brand name, capitalizing (and using CamelCase) can help highlight both components.

michael_dorfman
Twitter as well. Craigslist is the only one that I can find that styles itself in lowercase text outside of the logo, and even this is ignored by the press.

My advice: don't get cute with styling. Yahoo! may look clever the first time you write it, but most people outside of the company are still going to write it as Yahoo anyway.

If you want some funky styling in the logo, go for it. But when it comes to written text, stick to the basics.

mikerhoads
I believe that if you spend more than 5 seconds thinking about something like this then you are starting off on the wrong foot. Flip a coin and then move on to more important stuff.