My Friday column is about new financial management sites that combine tracking tools with social networking principles.

The three sites that I spent the bulk of my time trying out were Geezeo.com, Wesabe.com, and Mint.com (sorry, this one’s still invite only).

Like many sites created during Web 2.0, they have some funky names that seem to have very little to do with money. Then again, what the heck does Quicken mean?

Blame it on those darn cybersquatters who want millions for a URL.

Here’s the story of how each site was named:

Mint is the most straightforward: “Money + Intelligence = Mint,” wrote its director of marketing evangalism Noah Kagan in an e-mail.

Wesabe co-founder Jason Knight tells the story this way: “My one long term regret is I didn’t study Spanish. ‘Tu sabe,’ means ‘you know.’ ‘We Sabe,’ means ‘we know.’ Wesabe=We Know.” As in we know your money. It has nothing to do with the sushi condiment.

Here’s how to get Geezeo according to co-founder Peter Glyman: “Take the letter ‘g’ as in five g’s in my pocket. It sounds like ‘Geez.’ We were trying to keep it light and fun and…it was available.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.