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news

Give us a name, and we’ll give you $10

By David Topping

On Monday, Torontoist will begin a daily event listings column highlighting a small number of the swellest things going on in the city that day. (It’s based on Gothamist’s Pencil This In.) We can’t wait! Only problem is that, after much brainstorming, we don’t have a wicked name for it yet. So we could use your help—we’re looking for a name that is short, smart, and straightforward, but that isn’t just “What’s On” or something (our fallback is “To Do,” which we could cope with). Post a comment with your idea(s) for a name, and if you pick one that we really like and end up using, we’ll give you the exciting reward of $10! Hooray for crowdsourcing!

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Comments

  • catchingair

    “spontaneously yours”
    or
    “in the groove”

  • King Frankenstein

    Everything under the tower

  • McKingford

    “Daily Events Listing”

  • akaba

    The Top in T.O.

  • nippleholic

    The Shiznit

  • Green Sulfur

    You’re all forgetting the obligatory ‘ist’ in your names. Shame(ist) on you all.

  • David Topping

    For the record, the name need not incorporate the -ist suffix, necessarily (one early name we tossed around was Toronto List, though). But if it’s an awesome name that does incoporate -ist, bonus points.

  • wmolls

    inTO

  • Robsonian

    TorontoList is, actually, a great name.

  • Svend

    Top Of The Day

  • Derek Quenneville

    Go For It
    Event-ualities
    WhereWhatWhenWow
    @TO

  • accozzaglia

    Can’t miss.

  • tomms

    Whats on-ist
    Stick Note-ist

  • jennyfish

    Torontoist List
    What’s Hot in TDot
    T.O. Now Ya Know
    ToDo in TDot
    Where the Party At

  • casuistry

    Do or Die.

  • bee rad

    ‘the daily dish’
    ‘daily planner-ist’
    ‘out and about-ist’
    ‘get your lazy ass off the computer and do something…ist’
    so the last one is a bit wordy, but it’s got a solid point.

  • Ranazar

    Tidbits.
    Or maybe …
    T.O. Tidbits.

  • dcooper

    Okay, TorontoList is too good.
    Um,
    The What L(ist) (super lame)

  • davedave

    ToronDOist
    Toron-DO-ist
    Torondoist
    ToronTODOist
    Torontodoist
    Toron-TODO-ist

  • funzology

    a change from the everyday
    highlighter worthy

  • Skippy the Magical Racegoat

    Get Outside (like the store?)
    What’s Happening
    Timetablist
    Adventurist
    T.O. Do List
    The Posterboard
    The Kiosk
    The Info Tower
    The Utility Pole (because that’s where you put up posters…)
    Time Out T.O.
    Goings On About Town (old-school!)

  • snailspace

    Happ’nist

  • David Topping

    T.O. Do (or T.O. Do List) is one we’ve kicked around a bit, too. Keep ‘em coming!

  • iskr

    from a usability standpoint, “What’s On” is familiar for people wanting to find out, well, what’s on.
    *daily* listings aren’t as common in what’s-on’s, but i don’t think “to do” is a clear enough solution.
    what about “T.O.day” or “TO.day” or some variation?
    “TO.day in the city”

  • atomeyes99

    Yorkist Hitlist?

  • jen_in_toronto

    Crowd Surfing…’cause you’re looking at a webpage featuring public events. Get it? No? Lame? I’m going to go hide now.
    I like T.O. Do List. What’s On reminds me of the Toronto Star.

  • rek

    (The) Listist

  • David Topping

    The first post of the new column is up! For now, we’re going with “Toronto List,” but we’ll still take and consider suggestions for the rest of the week.

  • andrew

    I guess To Do is probably the best, but still lacks the cosmopolitan flair of Pencil This In. Or how about patois? “What a gwan?!” kinda gets the idea across, but may seem more apt for Kingstonist, if there is one.

  • Robis

    I can’t believe no one suggested “Agendist” yet.

  • rek

    To Run To. Too punny?

  • Spi Boy

    How about… “Around Town”

  • Spi Boy

    Or …. Around TOwn

  • rek

    Urban Planning

  • davedave

    Happ’nist is the best one so far.

  • mrs

    The Daylist

  • NewTypography

    T.O.Day & T.O.Night
    Slogan for “TorontoList”: Keep it on the T.L.

  • joeclark

    Let me try to understand this here.
    A for-profit corporation (Gothamist LLC) somehow cannot come up with a title for one of its editorial sections, which may be used as a base for advertising sales.
    It canvasses its readers for a title, offering to pay a de minimis fee for all rights to that title. Not only might the title accrue income from advertising, but it could be trademarked and, later, that trademark could be registered, converting this $10 “crowdsourcing” effort into a significant intellectual-property asset for Gothamist LLC. It would add to the sale price when Gothamist is bought up by some other online venture, which is presumably what Jake Dobkin wants.
    Aren’t half the people submitting titles big fans of Michael Geist? Why doesn’t everyone submitting this nearly-free work (it will be free work for all but the winner) realize it’s a bad deal? Because intellectual property is bad for you only when a big corporation is trying to sue your ass, or when Geist tells you it is?
    What if your beloved Torontoist, with its endlessly charming and ♥ADORABLE♥ editors, is trying to take advantage of you? Is that inconceivable? What if the editors don’t realize what they’re doing? Does that mean they aren’t doing it after all?

  • McKingford

    Ok,
    The Daily Eventist

  • Svend

    Joe Clark, I benefit from Torontoist being successful even if I don’t have a monetary stake in it.
    However, I’m keeping my best suggestion to myself until the prize is raised to $12. :-)

  • Jonathan Goldsbie

    Of the above suggestions, rek’s “Urban Planning” is my favourite.

  • David Topping

    To address Joe’s points, as best I can. Joe, please let me know if you want me to forward your comments up the chain to Jake; I’ll happily do so.
    So, what’s in a name?

    A for-profit corporation (Gothamist LLC) somehow cannot come up with a title for one of its editorial sections, which may be used as a base for advertising sales.

    To be fair, this isn’t “Gothamist LLC” having trouble coming up with a name, it’s Torontoist, and more specifically, it’s Robin (the writer of the column) and I. We were the ones brainstorming the names, and we couldn’t come up with one we both really really really liked. She suggested having a reader contest for it last night, which I thought was a different but great idea. Gothamist was not consulted in any way whatsoever about this post before it went up; it wasn’t their idea, nor was it approved by them once Robin and I thought of it.
    It is fair to say, though, that having a daily listings column is a feature that is good for Torontoist (that’s why we have it!), and that it’s thus one that could potentially help sell ads on the site. But it’s also just the title we’re talking about here, and Joe, you (and Steve Munro) provided generous and much-appreciated gratis help to put together Torontoist’s TTC survey last year. The goal of the survey wasn’t to profit from it, for me or for Torontoist. It was just a “this could be cool and helpful” idea that turned out to be pretty cool and helpful. I’m not sure if it helped us sell ads over a few months, but that thought hasn’t even crossed my mind till now.

    It canvasses its readers for a title, offering to pay a de minimis fee for all rights to that title. Not only might the title accrue income from advertising, but it could be trademarked and, later, that trademark could be registered, converting this $10 “crowdsourcing” effort into a significant intellectual-property asset for Gothamist LLC. It would add to the sale price when Gothamist is bought up by some other online venture, which is presumably what Jake Dobkin wants.

    I’m not sure how much of the success of the column depends on the name, and thus how much the “title [might] accrue income from advertising” as much as the daily content published under it would. And I can’t speak to future use (though I don’t think Gothamist has trademarked “Pencil This In” after years of use), but my only goal here—the only point of this post soliciting ideas—is to have a great name for a daily event listings column, one that people will like and not get tired of or find lame after a week or two. I see this more as asking some people I sorta know for ideas for something I’m working on than I see it as screwing some foolish strangers out of their ideas.
    As for the “de minimis” fee, you should understand that Torontoist is not anywhere near rolling in money, and that $10 is not nothing as far as that goes (if we were rolling in money, we’d offer to pay more). I was originally not going to offer any money, but figured throwing a few bucks in the pot might get us more and better suggestions. (I mean, if I was a reader, I’d probably toss my hat in the ring.)
    I also must disagree that giving a name to a daily event listings post on Torontoist is a “significant intellectual-property asset for Gothamist LLC.” To what extent, then, are people who comment, for free, significant assets? Aren’t you, a regular commenter, a significant asset? Isn’t this conversation an asset, because more people will come back to the post to see my response, then your response, thus creating more impressions on the post and giving Torontoist fractions of a cent from each impression of any ad that might appear on the page? My parents generously gave me my name, gratis, and aren’t I, David Topping, an asset for Gothamist LLC? Thinking that way—that everything has a value, that everything must be monetized and optimized—is not only a horrible way to run a site, it’d also make the person doing it totally insane.

    ….What if your beloved Torontoist, with its endlessly charming and ♥ADORABLE♥ editors, is trying to take advantage of you? Is that inconceivable? What if the editors don’t realize what they’re doing? Does that mean they aren’t doing it after all?

    I don’t think we are taking advantage of anyone, and I certainly don’t intend to. I don’t ever intend to take advantage of anyone on Torontoist, be it readers, subjects, or staff. That wouldn’t be very adorable or charming. I don’t think that’s naivety on my part, though; I think you’ve just really, really, really misunderstood the motives behind this post.

  • rek

    joe, that’s way too long for a column name.

  • Svend

    Wutzon!
    Use a fat colourful graffiti font.

  • Svend

    WuTzOn 2 NyTe
    Make the “2″ twice as big as the rest.

  • andrew

    rek’s on fire today. i too vote for Urban Planning.

  • jainey

    Pick a Pocket
    (you know, the city has pockets….)
    oh screw it, Urban Planning’s kind of awesome.

  • Jonathan Goldsbie

    To tweak rek’s suggestion just a bit, how about “Urban Planner”? (In the event “Urban Planner” is chosen, rek should still get the $10 and all the credit.)

  • joey

    see you at…

  • mickih

    The Short List
    or,
    Shortlisted

  • rek

    You can have my suggestion, but I want to retain the movie rights and 25% of merch, ok?

  • David Topping

    We’re gonna ride this week out with Toronto List, but we’ll hopefully decide on a new one this weekend. And for the record, I quite like Urban Planning, too.

  • e3000

    Another vote for Urban Planning. That would be of course if we were voting.

  • joeclark

    dstopping, you can’t turn around and trademark the comments I write on your blog. They do not become actually marketable commodities for Gothamist LLC. They do not accrue monetary value.
    Incidentally, commenters own the copyright to their original comments and merely nonexclusively license display rights to Gothamist.

  • David Topping

    I have no plans on Torontoist’s behalf, nor am I aware of any plans on Gothamist’s, to “turn around and trademark” the name of our daily event listings. You say tomato, I say tomatoist.

  • David Topping

    Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. With rek’s permission, we’ve decided to go with his “Urban Planning” suggestion (and tweak it to “Urban Planner”), beginning today!

  • rek

    I’m rich! Richer than astronauts!

  • dcooper

    You may be rich, but you sold out to THE MAN. (which is a bad thing, says angry guy, up there^)