"The instructions were clear: It had to be catchy, it had to have something to do with what the company does, and most important, the Web address must be available," says fish.

"My team and I put our heads together and came up with some really good names, making sure they complied with all three requirements -- especially the third. And secretly we postulated what the prize might be."

A few weeks later, word gets around that a name has been chosen. But when fish's team hears it, they're puzzled. It's not catchy. It doesn't seem to have any connection with what the company does. And when they guess at the spelling to see if the domain name is available, the first thing that pops up is a porn site.

"We brought this up by e-mail to management," fish says. "We got our response later that day when the official name-selection announcement came through.

"The name used some obscure spelling that no one -- including potential partners, customers or funders -- hearing the company's name would ever guess. That was important, since lots of the company's marketing at this point was based on word of mouth.