Not long ago, I noted how the formerly chic “e” prefix used for early-wave Internet entities — think eBay, E*TRADE, even email — had been supplanted by the new-wave “i”, as in iPhone and iGoogle. I also absently wondered which would be the next letter to come along and signify bleeding-edge Web with-it-ness.

It looks like a less-obvious and more reductive answer has emerged: Instead of adding a letter, the new style is to remove a pesky vowel or two to achieve latter-day branding power.

That’s the methodology used to update fusty old eProject, first named in 1997, to its current re-brand of Daptiv:

Daptiv is a good choice because “it sounds very current,” [Catchword principal Burt Alper] adds, noting the trend “to alter spellings to create distinctions,” citing the Motorola Razr cellphone and the photo-sharing Web site Flickr.

“But since Daptiv is based on a real English word,” Mr. Alper says, “there’s also a sense of stability” that may be missing from more fanciful coined words.

“It’s also short and easy to pronounce,” he adds, “and the dot-com domain was available for registration.”

It’s actually something of a miracle that any semi-sensible URL is free for the picking, what with domain-squatters scooping up speculative letter combinations.

I’ll note that I, myself, am currently working with a prime example of this vowel-less phenomenon: 8trk. Yes, I’m part of the problem (or the solution, depending on your perspective).