Virgin mobile has christened its latest phone “Lobster”. Sink your claws into this immaculate contraption, via Mobile Whack:

The Virgin Lobster 700 TV is a TV and DAB radio receiver rolled into one.

Channels currently on offer include BBC One, ITV1 and E4, with support for up to 50 DAB digital radio stations. The 700 TV is also equipped with a 1.3 megapixel camera capable of recording videos, and offers 4x digital zoom as well. The 240×320 pixel resolution screen can handle 65k colors.

On the phone, you find an MP3 player complemented by a loudspeaker. The 700 TV apparently has a talk time of 5 hours on a full charge. On board, it has 30MB of memory, but is expandable. Weighing in at 140g, the phone supports GPRS and is integrated with an email client. It is Bluetooth-enabled as well.

Nice. But why Lobster? Razr, Pebl, BlackBerry and Chocolate are all anchored in some physical reference to the phones, Chocolate being the biggest stretch. Perhaps because, like the Virgin corporate colors, Lobsters are red. And maybe they hope to gain the same ease of name use and acceptance demonstrated by forbearers Napster, Friendster and Grokster. Probably a bit of both.

Of course, the initial inspiration had to have come from Salvador Dalí‘s 1936 creation, “Lobster Telephone”:

But the real fish story in the land of phone names comes to us from Nokia, one of the last handset manufacturers to arrive at the naming party:

Nokia has finally caught on that handset names mean something. The company, coming under competitive pressure from Motorola, says it will begin giving models names instead of numbers to compete with the likes of Motorola’s RAZR and LG’s Chocolate phone. “What you will see coming from us in the future is not just a numbering system, you are going to start to see names that carry a meaning and are important to consumers,” said Nokia head of marketing Keith Pardy.

Let’s help Nokia get the party started. If they are looking to make a splash, naming a phone Fin would be a good start. Fin would be a great name for a thin phone or a multimedia phone from Nokia. In most Scandinavian languages (Nokia being based in Finland), Fin can mean fine, elegant, good, excellent, thin and subtle. And of course in other languages where a Fin is a fish fin or a rocket fin, fin implies thin and sleek. As a multimedia phone name, Fin is the final word, as in that one foreign film you almost sat through the first half of.

Cet obscur objet du désir, indeed.

However, they would have to navigate the treacherous intellectual property waters roiling ’round this bizarre product:

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The names of Web 2.0 companies are just as well conceived as the businesses. From today’s London Times.

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But there is a “u” in stupid. And you know who you are. Starwood Hotels has announced that “Element” is the name of their new upscale extended-stay brand, and that the letter “t” has become too hot to handle. From USA Today:

There’s a long list of naming don’ts, says Starwood spokeswoman KC Kavanagh. You can’t use one that doesn’t play well overseas (the “T” in ELEMENT has to be curved, or else it could be perceived as a cross, which wouldn’t go over in Muslim countries).
You don’t want a name that’s
“too flaky, too feminine.”

Will the branding nimrod who thinks we now have to change the alphabet because people can’t distinguish between a letter of the alphabet and a Christian symbol please step forward? Does this affect all temporary lodging literature, or just signage? How will hotels, motels and resorts address the notions of atriums, room rates, banquets, baths, buffets, check out times, reservations, continental breakfasts, guest relations, hospitality, valet services, late arrival policies, package tours, porters, room rates, pillow top mattresses, suites, twin beds, and vacant rooms?

Stupidity is viral, and especially potent when backed by research and a PowerPoint, so it will be interesting to see if Marriot, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental and Madarin Oriental follow suit.

But just in case, we were up all night curving all the “t”s on this blog.

Don’t laugh, “x”s, you’re little more than leaning crosses. Or as we like to say, a dead letter walking.

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