I was thinking about registering the “raspberrypidiy” name today, but decided to do one last look into the copyright + trademark rights of the “Raspberry Pi” name. I’m glad I did. After doing some digging, The Raspberry Pi Trademark rules state that “[You may not] (ii) use the Raspberry Pi Word Marks as part of the domain name for your website”. ALSO, they state you can’t use it for your social media. I’m going to have to change all my instagram handles to avoid this issue, with a new brand name I can come up with. It can’t be related to raspberry pi or give the impression that it’s run by Raspberry Pi in any way. Big issue I just avoided, I could have been in legal trouble with a massive organization. I’m going to have to think of a different brand name for my website, and maybe I’ll use this to brainstorm.
After looking for guides/info on creating a brand/name, I found a blog by Hubspot, which is a business starting resource, like Shopify.
- Outline your brand goals and identity.
The reason my website will exist is to make projects easily accessible with a learning component; not blindly following a tutorial; but learning through the process. Like a lesson. I will create tutorials, ranging from simple to more complex, on how and why things work. I want the brand identity (visual elements) to be futuristic/modern, and to show that it is the inspiration of careers and ideas. With the brand name, I want highlight the usefulness of tutorials and how much you can learn from them.
- Consider your customers and competitors.
I need to consider the naming norms of the industry. Looking up some sample topics, I see lots of “hardware”, “circuits”, and “pi”. Nothing with raspberry, except for raspberry pi geek. Asking for a copyright takedown, if you ask me. So, I need to come up with a general name of something that relates to the Rapsberry Pi/other software, with actually referencing the raspberry pi itself. Easy!
- Brainstorm and discovery.
Here’s the hard part.
- SoftwareSavvy: I like the name “savvy”, as it creates a sense of learning and mastery to the subject, software. I think this would be a good name, if it wasn’t TAKEN!!!!
- Hacksoft: I like this name a lot. It has “hack” which is a big keyword, and “soft” which is for software. I would totally use this, if it wasn’t TAKEN!!!!
- MicroPCtips: Not so brandable, but available. I might want to explore this more.
- ByteMaster: More available, but bytemaster.com is not. I’ll look for something similar. Maybe I will expand on “byte” and “master”, and look for synonyms with it.
- Going back to “HackSoft”, how about PiSoft? PiWiz? Both aren’t available.
- Pi Professional? This sounds good, isn’t in the raspberry pi name (I could say it’s about math), and is available! It also shows a sense of mastery and mentorism from a pro (Which may be slightly misleading). However, it doesn’t roll off the tongue very well. I have all day, I’ll do more searching.
- Pi Proficient: This is a great option in my opinion. It shows that you don’t need to be fully committed to being a Pi “Professional”, and that you can be “pi proficient” through the tutorials. I think that this is a great brand name.
After consideration, I’ve decided on “Pi Proficient” for my website name. No copyright infringement, no funny business. Also, it is specific enough to rank well in search results.
Wow! That took a while, especially checking that the domain names weren’t taken for my ideas (most of them were). Finally, I have decided on a name! Pi Proficient! The website will be seperated into different sections, such as tutorials, forum, questions, FAQ, resources, and so on.