Since the inception of FIO, we’ve continually run into confusion with the “FIO Address” label. Contest after contest where we ask for people to provide us with their FIO Address, we get an overwhelming number of people who reply with their FIO Public Key instead. That’s the long string of confusing characters starting with “FIO…”. It may be that the cryptocurrency community thinks of the long string of characters when they hear about a cryptocurrency “address.”
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What we know: “FIO Address” alone creates confusion.
What we don’t know for sure: What is a better descriptor than FIO Address or can we solve this confusion some other way?
Surveying people on Twitter or Telegram doesn’t seem to appropriately reflect the confusion created in real interactions.
The current discussions with the business development, sales, and marketing teams have lead to the following outcome:
FIO Handle
If an integration partner does not want something branded with “FIO”, while we don’t prefer it, we suggest the alternative of Wallet Handle.
Why “handle” and not “name”?
Name implies your actual name (“Luke Stokes”). .
What if we doubled down on education?
People don’t know what a FIO Address is. They also wouldn’t know what a FIO Name, FIO Handle, FIO Tag, FIO ID, or FIO Wallet Name is. They fall back on what they know and “address” in crypto means a long crazy string. If that confusion wasn’t there, FIO Address wouldn’t be that bad of an identifier as it addresses where the cryptocurrency/NFT goes, just like addressing where your email goes or where your postal mail goes.
What if we simply acknowledged this challenge and faced it head on by always, every time, including an example when we talk about a FIO Address with (username@domain)? It takes up important real estate from a Tweet, but it might solve the issue after a few months when more people know what the term means and use it regularly. “RT and include your FIO Address (username@domain) as a comment.”
Pros:
Less work to rebrand everything right now.
Gives us feedback on whether or not we can overcome the confusion with a simple change instead of a drastic one.
Doesn’t put us in the terrible position of making a change now and finding out later it’s the wrong one.
Cons:
Still creates a challenge for the business development, marketing, and sales team.
Wallets may still ignore us and use FIO Name, FIO ID, etc anyway.
Takes up a lot of valuable text by always using the example (username@domain)
Alternative Options (with Pros/Cons for each)
After lots of discussion, we haven’t yet come to consensus even within our team which means the best path forward may be to get a poll in place in front of real people in our target age group and ask them which option they prefer for something like a “human readable identifier for a payment system account” (exact survey question and description TBD). We don’t have to just survey crypto people. It might be better if we don’t. If we want, we can exclude FIO Address as an option in the poll (or run multiple polls), but if we include it and it wins, that may tell us education is the right approach.
Drop FIO and go generic:
We also considered dropping the “FIO” from the branding all together and trying to own a term outright (like Kleenex) with ideas like Crypto Wallet, Crypto Handle, Crypto Name, or Wallet Name but ultimately decided the FIO branding is important.
Pros:
Owning it completely so all wallets could integrate it and, over time, it could become known throughout the industry as the standard.
Cons:
Losing the percentage of people that want to know more and get more involved in the community. How can they find us? Including “FIO” in the identifier accomplishes this important connection to our community.
FIO Handle:
Pros:
Already understood and reference by marketing personnel (see comments).
Handle implies your mechanism for being known within and interacting with a network (“Twitter Handle”, “Telegram Handle” etc).
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But why not stick with address, like an email address? That also has an “@”.
As demonstrated by actual interactions with our target market, “FIO Address” has a failing grade. This has been the case with just about every giveaway and learn and earn we’ve done. We can either continually try to educate the cryptocurrency community that “address” doesn’t mean some long string of confusing characters, or we can own a new word like handle.
Why not “FIO ID” or “FID” or “FIO Account”?
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Already understood as your public username.
Not confused with address.
Cons:
Usually starts with an @ meaning it could actually be confused with the domain.
The argument has been made social media platforms are moving away from this description.
The argument has been made it’s not known at all by younger folk.
May not translate well.
FIO Name:
Pros:
It’s personal.
Already implemented as such in Edge Wallet
Cons:
Name implies your actual name (“Luke Stokes”) which may bother privacy advocates.
FIO doesn’t have to be your name, it can be anything you want.
FIO Wallet Name:
Pros:
Descriptive.
Cons:
Too long and some may drop the FIO branding to just use “Wallet Name” which might hurt our branding efforts.
FIO ID:
Pros:
Short, simple, and clear.
It is, after all, a human readable identifier of your cryptocurrency public addresses.
Cons:
Reminds people of something assigned to them, not something they got to choose themselves and own in a self-sovereign way.
It’s cold and sterile, not human and engaging.
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Why not “FIO Username” or “Wallet Username”?
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Closely resembles existing concepts like “DID” which are technical.
Could get confused with Exchange ID.
FIO Tag:
Pros:
Other platforms are starting to use this terminology
Fits with the “tag me in that message” approach
Cons:
Some may not be familiar with “tag” other than something attached to their clothing or a game they played as a kids.
We might be too early to push this term before people comprehend it.
Do people really say “Twitter Tag” or “Telegram Tag” or “Venmo Tag”?
FIO Account:
Pros:
You register an “account” with a service and this is your account on the FIO blockchain service.
Cons:
Sounds impersonal, like something assigned.
FIO Username / FIO Wallet Username
Pros:
…
Cons:
Username can create confusion as many wallets already have a username with password to login and in some cases encrypt their seed phrases.
What about “Crypto Handle” or “FIO Crypto Handle”?
We really liked this idea and had a lot of discussions back and forth as to whether “Wallet” (something made popular by the “Apple Wallet” which means you can assume millions of dollars in branding and research went into it) was the word we really wanted to connect to because crypto wallets aren’t actually “wallets” as much as they are vaults to secure your private keys. “Crypto” is a word rapidly growing in popularity with rapers, financial investors, pop-culture, and more. It also can feel “unsafe” for those who don’t get it. In the end, both “Crypto” and “Wallet” were dropped for just FIO Handle.
Why not drop “FIO” branding all together and own a generic and become like “Kleenex”?
We did discuss going with a generic term like “Crypto Handle” or “Wallet Handle” and owning it completely so all wallets could integrate it and, over time, it could become known throughout the industry as the standard. The problem with this approach is losing the percentage of people that want to know more and get more involved in the community. How can they find us? Including “FIO” in the identifier accomplishes this important connection to our community.
FIO Handle: The Parts
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FIO Crypto Handle
Pros:
Crypto is a word growing in popularity in culture.
Cons:
Too long, might get shorted to Crypto Handle.
Old demographic may think of “crypto” as a scam or unsafe.
FIO <X>: The Parts
Option 1:
Leave as is, “FIO Name” and “FIO Domain”
Pros:
No work to do.
Cons:
“FIO Name” in the context of other changes we’re proposing will probably cause confusion.
Edge Wallet (for example) already uses “FIO Name” for the full FIO identifier.
“FIO Domain” confuses people who are familiar DNS and unstoppable domains and they think this part of the identifier has more functionality than it really does.
Option 2:
username@network
In a FIO branded context (such as a FIO Handle identifier registration site), there’s no reason to say “FIO Username” or “FIO Network” as “FIO” is implied in the FIO Handle. In a non-FIO branded environment (such as an NFT marketplace), the network will be the only part traded separately so in that context it will be described as a “FIO Network” NFT.
The result is username @ network.
This
Pros:
username makes sense for what this part of the identifier is, especially in connection with a network
network avoids the domain confusion mentioned above.
network works for communities (luke@btc: luke as part of the bitcoin network), wallets and software (luke@edge: luke as a user and member of the Edge Wallet network), and exchanges (luke@bitmaxfio: luke as a member of the Bitmax exchange, quite possibly including special characteristics within that network such as KYC verification).
Next Steps
Gather feedback from our community of partners and users on this rebranding proposal to avoid confusion we’re seeing related to the FIO Address descriptor.
After a form of consensus is reached, set a date to complete the rebranding.
Identify all areas where “FIO Address”, “FIO Name”, and “FIO Domain” are mentioned and begin changing them. This includes things like explainer videos, demonstration videos, knowledge base videos, website copy, the registration website, integrated products, and more.
Things we will not change at this time: API and SDK endpoints and naming conventions. These are not customer facing and though they may create confusion for our developer and integration community, that larger concern for our marketing, sales, and business development team today is consistency of user experience for the end user of the FIO Protocol.
Why do this now? Because the feedback from our team working to promote FIO is loud and clear: This messaging confusion is a bottleneck for their ability to easily describe FIO and its benefits. Creates opportunities to promote FIO as a solution for networks and communities.
Taps into a feeling of belonging to a tribe.
Cons:
Some say network is more confusing than domain and will require more education.
Option 3:
???