Riot is now Element

No!!! Of all the names in the world why this. "Hey bro, let's chat on Element" ,not quite a ring to it.

The hardest problem in computer science strikes again!

Matrix,Riot and Libolm are epic projects, I wish them all the success but man, even Riot was a hard sell as a brand. I would seriously be dissapointed if it loses popularity over this. I don't think the project maintainers understand that their core users/fans are waiting for a product they can sell to friends,family and coworkers.

People who don't know tech rely on branding/brand reputation and word of mouth reputation to decide if they are intetested in even trying out a product to begin with.

Which of these is unlike the others?

1) Signal

2) Telegram

3) Element

4) Whatsapp

Hint: The theme is messaging and communication.

Whatsapp can be an extremely confusing name for non-native English speakers. I'm from Spain and I think 90% of the time I see it written in Spain, it's written wrong (wassap, whasapp, wuatsapp, whatsap, watsap, wuassap, wuassapp, whatsup, watsup, etc.). Sometimes a phonetically "transliterated" version is used instead, like "guasap", which I find more tolerable because at least then it becomes a genuine Spanish word, rather than a botched attempt at writing an English word.

Also, many people don't get the meaning/pun in the name at all (which probably is one of the reasons for writing it wrong). Even to me, with a good English level, it wasn't immediate because "what's up" is a very idiomatic greeting and not one that non-natives (or at least, Spanish people) tend to use in a natural way. It took some time to click in my mind.

That said, Whatsapp absolutely dominates chat apps in Spain... so I guess these issues are not that important after all. Or at least, not if you are at the right place at the right time.