Three Words to Seed on Purpose: TimeNav, T-Nav, Time Web

What this means for you

TNP’s research file nicknames.md does not leave brand vocabulary to chance. It picks three terms to repeat early, on purpose, and lets the rest emerge from the community. Every external-facing document should use those three terms and resist inventing new ones.

The pitch

“TimeNav” for the feature, because it sounds like AirDrop or FaceTime and journalists can repeat it. “T-Nav” for the developer shorthand, because it looks like a CLI tool and engineers will type it without thinking. “Time Web” for the ecosystem, because once apps visualise timelines as spaces, that name becomes inevitable. Three words, used consistently for the first year, then let the community add the rest.

Who it’s for

The person writing a landing page, a Show HN post, a conference abstract, or an SDK README, who is deciding whether to invent new vocabulary or pick up the seeded terms.

Proof points

• docs/research/nicknames.md lists 30+ candidate names grouped by audience (mainstream media, developers, academics, product, hacker culture, ecosystem)
• The same file picks exactly three to seed early: TimeNav, T-Nav, Time Web
• The ecosystem term “Time Web” is already framed in evolution.md as the consumer-facing metaphor that emerges when timelines are visualised as navigable spaces
• Community-emergent candidates left deliberately unowned: “TimeLayers”, “Realis”, “Multiverse Mode”, “Time Mesh”

mindmap
  root((Three words))
    TimeNav
      mainstream
      journalists
      one syllable
    T-Nav
      developers
      CLI shape
      Slack shorthand
    Time Web
      ecosystem
      consumer metaphor
      spatial UI