So are you seriously saying brands which can be abbreviated aren't adapted as well by consumers as brands which can't be? And do you have anything other than "I said so" to back it up?

It's not whether the brand can be abbreviated or not, it's what you choose to build your brand around. A short, easy to remember name is crucial [1].

You don't hear much about International Business Machines, but you do hear a bit about IBM, because IBM built it's brand around the abbreviated form which is easier to remember. Likewise, HP is now the word du jour to refer to Hewlett-Packard.

Abbreviated forms are fine, and have actually been used to bolster (or change) a company's image. Outside of tech circles if I say MS I'll most likely get awkward glances, but the moment I switch to saying Microsoft I'll get immediate brand name recognition. Likewise, you don't hear many people talking about P or C&C, but drop the name Pepsi or Coca-Cola and you'll also get instant brand name recognition.

So the question becomes is DuckDuckGo really an easily recognizable, easy to memorize, that generates imagery associated with the given product/service? Is it really that appealing?

Surely, it's memorable due to it being so weird, but is it memorable in a way that I'll link up with search? I dunno, but there's some validity to what's been said so far about the name being a bit too long or awkward for the company's sake.

1. http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/library/working-paper-articles/199... p.11 "Accordingly, the criteria rated most important were relevance to product category (5.99), connotations and images generated (5 X3), and overall appeal (5.79). They did not lose sight of the fact that names should be memorable. Ease of recognition (5.77) and ease of recall (5.42) also were rated highly."

I am not questioning building a brand. As I said elsewhere, in blind tests, people have a hard time distinguishing google search results from bing. Brand name is one of the major factors when it comes to consumers.

People preferred pepsi to thumsup in blind tests. Thumsup sweetened its drink and faced a major backlash. Thumsup drinkers associated themselves with Thumsup brand and took pride in "not sweet as pepsi".

I do understand that brand plays a major part for the consumer.

What I was questioning was the ridiculous assumption that somehow calling DuckDuckGo as DDG is diluting its brand, and always calling Google as Google is indicative of its strong brand.

As I see it, using DDG instead of DuckDuckGo is not the core problem. It's not that doing so dilutes the brand (it does in way, but that's really irrelevant) I think the main point is that if the users feel compelled to rename then there is something in the original brand name which is inefficient or cumbersome which thus detracts from the brand's overall value.

And I do not think it's ridiculous to assume that repetition builds brand awareness. The study I linked to said as much, indicating that repetition was one of the best ways to establish brand identity in the minds of consumers. That's why as a company you're best served by aligning your brand name with whatever moniker people are more likely to use and hence why a short, memorable brand name is more powerful than a unique but long-winded archaic name (at least in this day and age).