There’s an article in the New York Times about Bing, Microsoft’s would-be Google search killer. What’s odd is that the entire piece is about Microsoft’s choice of the name “Bing,” and says nothing of the service’s functionality. From the article:
“…And if Bing turns into a verb like, say, Xerox, TiVo or, well, Google, that would be nice too. Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said Thursday that he liked Bing’s potential to ‘verb up.’ Plus, he said, ‘it works globally, and doesn’t have negative, unusual connotations.’”
“Google” was meaningless to its millions of customers upon introduction. So was Xerox, Kleenex and others. They became synonymous with what they do because they do so very well.