I heard of Invictus a while back and thought they were trying to do too much to be successful at any one thing. Recently I watched some discussions with Daniel Larimer about BitShares and I am becoming more and more convinced that he is on the right track.
The problem I see is that there is a serious branding and messaging problem with Invictus products. For example:
* protoShares (AKA bitShares PTS)
* bitShares AGS
* bitShares and bitShares X (one is an exchange/bank, the other stores equities for all Invictus DACs? Still confused about this)
* Keyhotee
Please do not take this the wrong way, but what the hell? Even worse than being non-descriptive and difficult, these names are way too similar for the separate and distinct functions they are supposed to convey. At the very least, IMO, the names need to be changed immediately if this project is expected to gain any mainstream traction. I would go even further and say that I don't think most of the early adopters understand what these products actually are. Here is just one list of suggested names, off the top of my head, though I am sure the community can do much better if we tried:
* ProtoShares -> BitFund (funds the whole operation)
* BitShares -> BitCorps (stores equity in multiple corporations/DACs)
* BitShares AGS -> BitCorps Angel Investor Fund (why call this a "share" if it is not tradable/liquid? For consistency I would just call this a fund).
* BitShares X -> BitBank or BitExchange
* Keyhotee -> BitIdentity or BitID
I'd love to hear your thoughts, as well as clarification on the issues I am not understanding correctly. Thanks.
I have to agree these names make a lot more sense and are easier to market. Why not just use the Bit (without the Shares) as the brand?
Microsoft "Windows" <-- Logical brand
Microsoft "Word" 2000 <-- Logical brand 200 edition
Microsoft "Windows" 95/2000 <-- Logical version of Logical brand
Microsoft "Windows Word X" (what?!)
Microsoft "Windows IE 10"? (huh?!)
But I'm not the one who made the decision to switch it around and whoever did make the decision probably has the metrics to determine if it's catching on fast or not.
My advice or suggestion is ditch the X and weird lettering and just give each chain a code name and a date. If Bitshares X is the code name then replace the X with the date the blockchain is mapped and born.
Bitshares (codename) 03-2014
Just as Android has a code name with every release and Ubuntu has a code name with every release. Go with code names and dates but keep a primary brand of "Bit" or "Bitshares".