Naming companies is so difficult. The number of constraints a name must satisfy only seems to grow each year. Between the dearth of available domain names, acceptability in other languages and international markets you might go into, it’s surprising we don’t have more names like Zzyzx.

Here are some resources to help with the process:

• List of root words – It can be useful to combine these with a word or words relating to your business.
• NameBoy.com – A site that allows you to select a few words and it will check various combinations if they are available domain names
• Etymologies of existing company names: Wikipedia List, Business Insider article
• PCNames – A tool that merges words and checks their availability in realtime
• FuseName – Another tool to check availability of name combinations

The minds (and bodies) of Syyn Labs spent the past three months building a huge, two-story Rube Goldberg machine during which a piano gets dropped and a TV is smashed with a sledge hammer. Why? It’s the centerpiece for the latest music video from the band OK Go (remember… the guys who did the treadmill video). It features the song “This Too Shall Pass” and even after listening to it hundreds of times, it still sounds good!



Huge thanks to the band for this opportunity and to all the Syyn Labs and Mindshare folks that helped pull this together. Special recognition to Adam Sadowsky for orchestrating the whole thing like a pro conductor. Thanks to all the people that helped make my vision for the Legos a reality! Namely: Dylan Bushnell, Heather Knight, Liya Brook, Paul Grasshoff, Peter Svidler, Izumi Hamagaki, Wyatt Bushnell, Sam Leventer, and Mahdroo McCaleb. Hats off to the steady camera man, a major hero for his ability to capture this on film! Thanks to the magical eye of Josh Reiss for capturing photos of the whole thing too!

Updates:

• The video was covered on NY Times, CNN, Examiner, Wired, Makezine, NPR, NBC Los Angeles, BoingBoing 1st, BoingBoing 2nd, DVICE, Gizmodo 1st, Gizmodo 2nd & PerezHilton!
• An interesting article showing the statistics on the “viral effect” of the video is available at the Viral Blog
• A few previews from before the launch available at Rolling Stone, LA Times and AltPress
• LACMA is featuring a few components from the machine, including the Legos! There will be a concert fundraiser on March 5th, 2010. For tickets call 323 857-6010 or visit the LACMA site
• More info on the project and the release is available here
• There’s now a Wikipedia article about it.
• OK Go won a webby! More info here.
• A panorama of the top floor, courtesy of Pehr Hovey, is available here (1.5MB JPG)