What A Writer Thinks When They See Poorly Branded Technology

Yesterday, Apple refreshed their MacBook Pro line, taking them from drool-worthy to We’re-going-to-get-high-and-listen-to-Miles-Davis (ding! Mad Men reference!). As per the norm, I’m admitting up-front that I’m not qualified enough to espouse on the what and why behind the increased computing power (if you’re anything like me, you’d benefit much more by getting yourself a MacBook Air and/or waiting until they make MBPs more like MBAs, but that’s another blog post). Instead, what I want to do is focus on one specific new feature.

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Thunderbolt. It’s a new technology from Intel, new to Apple products, and is used, in the most basic sense, to transfer data. Dumbing it down even further, this is what Intel, and Apple, since they’re standing behind it, hopes will eventually replace (be used in conjunction with) your USB port and/or your FireWire port. For people who use external displays, it will also used for that. Thunderbolt is actually pretty neat, as you can see in this info from 9to5 Mac:

Light Peak is significantly faster than any of the other connection technology currently on the market. For comparison, Firewire 400 is 400 Mbps, Firewire 800 is 800 Mbps, USB2 is 480 Mbps, and USB3 (which never appeared on a Mac) is 3.2 Gbps. Light Peak comes in at a whopping 10 Gbps making it close to three times faster than USB 3, and over 10 times faster than Firewire 800. Although this won’t matter too much for Mac users, Light Peak can transfer an entire Blu-Ray movie in under 30 seconds.

Now you’re probably thinking: Wait, you said Thunderbolt. What is Light Peak?

Light Peak is what Intel used as a "code-name" for now-officially-branded Thunderbolt. So I should say, Thunderbolt is Light Peak.

Enter: my frustration.

Any decent writer knows the importance of a good name. If Fight Club had been started by a guy named Gerald Stricklenbocker, rather than Tyler Durden, would it have been quite as believable as an underground boxing cult that was capable of taking over the world? Exactly. The same principle is applied in product branding. Time and time again, products with “good” names sell better than products with shitty names.

Simple. So what’s so bad about Thunderbolt?

First, what we’re talking about here is data transfer. Which we (the unassuming computing public) think of in terms of--speed. Apple’s Thunderbolt info page confirms this. With a connection like this, we use words like “time,” and “seconds,” and “over”: “I’m transferring it over USB.”

However, Thunderbolt, which appears to be a portmanteau of “Thunder” and “Lightning Bolt,”*** which is confirmed by the symbol used in the logo and on the computer:

is comprised of two words that don't help us to instantly think of speed. We've got an auditory descriptor—after all, we hear thunder, and “bolt” which does nothing to help our sense of speed, because it is a visual descriptor--we see lightning.

***It was just pointed out to me that "Thunderbolt" is actually a word:

So while it is not a portmanteau, it still doesn't make sense.

So what about what we see when we hear Thunderbolt? The logo/icon above, compounds the confusion. If it looks familiar, it should:

OK, maybe not the last one, but the first two? That’s the symbol (international?) for DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!, which I suppose could be seen as a symbol of speed (maybe? like in the TOUCH THIS AND YOU'LL DIE FAST sense?), but I’m not sure it’s got the connotation that Intel/Apple wants, even if it could. To me, it has, and always will be synonymous with—DANGER! Even Marilyn Manson thought so:

And DANGER!, or Marilyn Manson, isn't what you want people thinking of before they plug in their $1,000 external monitor, or transfer their collection of 1,600 cat pictures.

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So Thunderbolt doesn’t sound right, and it doesn’t look right. What would work better, you ask?

How about what Intel “code-named” it?

Light Peak!

Because the data transferred over it (OH MY GOD! REMEMBER THE TIME WE DRESSED THE CAT UP LIKE A POLICE OFFICER!) moves at the speed of—light!

When you use it you get—peak performance!

If you do a Google Image search for “Light Peak,” 5 of the first 20 results include this photo:

We still need an icon, right? That image, specifically the ends of the 4 wires, each bursting with light—would be goddamn perfect. I made an (incredibly) crude drawing of it:

It’s got marketing built into it, too:


It’s not USB 2, what we use now, or USB 3, what’s coming, it’s Light Peak—it must be faster—IT’S GOT 4 WIRES!

(And I’m sure people who know way more than I do about technology are shaking their head right now, but c’mon, you know it’s true—this is how people (your mom, my mom, his mom, her mom) think.)

Maybe, as usual, I'm putting too much thought into it.

Since there aren’t even any products on the market (yet) that can take advantage of Light P—Thunderbolt technology, it is impossible to speculate how successful it will be. Maybe it will be great, after all, speed junkies will be speed junkies, regardless of the name.

But technology isn’t thought-up and marketed for/to speed junkies. They will always buy the latest and fastest. Technology and the accompanying marketing strategies are crafted very, very specifically so that your mom and my mom and his mom and her mom will have an easy-as-pie choice to make when faced with something they don't truly understand, but know they need, all while not wanting to look stupid:

2? 3? 4! Yes, 4! That’s what I need!

The technology enthusiast in me is excited for the speed Thunderbolt promises.

But the writer in me can’t ignore the possibility that Thunderbolt might turn out to be a—power outage.