Question
In a nutshell: My voice-controlled home automation system was named ModernSteward (I'm stupid).
The confusing part is: when you are giving a command, there should be a keyword. The keyword is Melissa, so you can say "Melissa, turn the lights on".
Melissa is very catchy and since we have a lot of publicity with it, we are seeking for another name of the product. Obviously, "Melissa" is not OK, because melissa.com is registered.
We were thinking about something like MelissaHome.com
See the current website:
http://modernsteward.com
Answer
Melissa has 3 syllables. Fewer is better. Siri has 2 syllables and 4 letters -- and it's easier to say (phonology).
MelissaHome sounds like a command to a dog or a deprecating command to a child: "Melissa, go home." Wait, forget about the "go." "Melissa, home!"
Never start with publicity. Start with what is right for your audience, right for your brand, right for what you want to evoke. MelissaHome does none of these things. Go back to my previous post. If you do stick with "Melissa," for the sake of argument, put a verb in front of it. When I did a project for a high-end antioxidant drink company, they had a catchy brand name but a difficult to spell ingredient (can't say here for confidentiality reasons). The website I suggested and that they use today was Drink<BrandName>.com -- because that's what they wanted people to do: Drink It! The ingredient was a feature, but not a benefit in and of itself and moreover, it was insuperably difficult to spell or pronounce.
You should think along the same lines.
Steven
