September 15, 2014   |   Read Online

4 Better Names for the Internet of Things

One of the factors adding to the confusion around the Internet of Things is its rather obtuse name. The name suffers from two key weaknesses:

1. It’s long. Do we really need four words?
2. It doesn’t explain anything. When you break the name into its components, it doesn’t tell you what it is.

So other than being unwieldy and failing to describe what it’s talking about, it’s a great choice.

But what are some alternatives? Here are a few to toss about.

Alternative names for IoT

• Universal Daemonization. This is a name I came up with that attempts to capture the concept of every object being interactive using a universal protocol/API stack based on TCP/IP, HTTP, and REST-based web services. The name should be intuitive: everything gets a daemon. Read more about it here.
• Universal Object Interaction (UOI). This is a similar way of saying the same thing, but it could be that having three words will be better than two.
• Programmable Object Interfaces (POI). Another similar approach, but with programming in the name.
• Transfurigated Phase Inversion. I don’t know what that means, but it’s better than Internet of Things.

My prediction aside, I cannot envision a world in which regular objects are not configured with 1) sensors, and 2) a universal way of accessing that data in two directions.

I am confident this will take place on top of TCP/IP, HTTP, and REST-based web services, i.e. existing(ish) technologies, but it matters not. The point is that this is unavoidable, and any name that adequately describes this phenomenon should include those components.

Related posts:

1. The Real Internet of Things: Details and Examples
2. The EM Wave of Crisis and Appreciation
3. The Rise of the Corporate Technology Ecosystem (CTE)