Ephemera

Innovation in decentralized messaging

  • Renaming

Ephemera is an organization that supports apps built with the Extensible Message Transport Protocol (XMTP) for secure, private, and portable messaging. They are a team of developers committed to making the internet a better, safer, and more equitable place.

The Ephemera wordmark beside a phone showing the app's chat screen

What we did

When we met their team, they were operating under the name XMTP Labs—they were in need of a fresh moniker that would be respected in the tech world and sound appropriate in policy discussions—from forums to congressional chambers. They wanted a name that honored their appreciation for personal privacy on the internet and the passionate collective of people working on these issues.

What was the deal with…

Trademark

We conducted a preliminary USPTO screening and Ephemera received a B grade.

URL

With a one-word name like this, the team anticipated adding a prefix or suffix. They landed on ephemerahq.com.

The decision

Ephemera was the “wild card” name in our second round of naming—sometimes the right name comes in the first round, other times it’s the very last name we share. The XMTP team had half a dozen naming options and ultimately, they took Ephemera forward to steward their cause.