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    Riot is now Element

    (element.io)
    550 points J_tt | 11 comments | 15 Jul 20 07:07 UTC | HN request time: 1.411s | source | bottom
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    badrabbit ◴[15 Jul 20 10:07 UTC] No.23843202[source]▶
    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.

    replies(23): >>23843237 #>>23843275 #>>23843279 #>>23843307 #>>23843441 #>>23843534 #>>23843568 #>>23843577 #>>23843744 #>>23843874 #>>23843920 #>>23843923 #>>23844147 #>>23844323 #>>23844327 #>>23845596 #>>23847596 #>>23847764 #>>23847933 #>>23854492 #>>23854968 #>>23863522 #>>23877413 #
    Al-Khwarizmi ◴[15 Jul 20 11:56 UTC] No.23843920[source]▶
    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.

    replies(11): >>23843944 #>>23844380 #>>23844580 #>>23845200 #>>23845871 #>>23846407 #>>23847489 #>>23847490 #>>23850481 #>>23855472 #>>23874876 #
    1. ndarilek ◴[15 Jul 20 13:04 UTC] No.23844580[source]▶
    Wow, native English speaker and I didn't even get the pun until this comment. I thought it was a stupid play on "What app should we message each other on?" and thus kind of a silly name. But folks use it regardless.
    replies(2): >>23847059 #>>23848738 #
    2. quasarj ◴[15 Jul 20 15:55 UTC] No.23847059[source]▶
    Also a native English speaker, also had no idea it was supposed to be a pun until right now. I just thought it was another silly name from an Asian company.
    replies(2): >>23847719 #>>23855569 #
    3. lostcolony ◴[15 Jul 20 16:38 UTC] No.23847719[source]▶
    Complete tangent, but, by any chance, when you read things, do you not 'hear' a voice in your head reading them?

    Curious, because I'm pretty sure the first time I ran across Whatsapp it was in text, but I tend to 'hear' the things I read/write in my head, as though a voice read them to me. And because of that the pun stuck out. It might just be I'm more inclined to look for puns (playing games with them all the time with friends and family), but wondering if that might be part of it: if you just see the name and it's just a word, not something sounded out in your head, you of course would not notice the play on words.

    replies(2): >>23848230 #>>23912238 #
    4. gagege ◴[15 Jul 20 17:13 UTC] No.23848230{3}[source]▶
    I don't think that's it, I hear words in my head, but didn't get the pun until I watched a Jimmy Fallon bit where he made fun of the name.
    replies(1): >>23849767 #
    5. TuringTest ◴[15 Jul 20 17:41 UTC] No.23848738[source]▶
    Really? I'm a native Spanish speaker, and the first thing I thought when learning about the app was that[1] ad.

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W16qzZ7J5YQ

    (Forgive me, it was still recent around here at the time the app got popular).

    replies(1): >>23912214 #
    6. bigintjin ◴[15 Jul 20 18:44 UTC] No.23849767{4}[source]▶
    Following on this train, as an fluent English speaker, millennial, Asian American that grew up in Texas public school all my life, and a lover of memes and puns...I also didn't realize WhatsApp was a pun...woah.
    replies(1): >>23872346 #
    7. jklm ◴[16 Jul 20 03:49 UTC] No.23855569[source]▶
    Are you thinking of Wechat? Whatsapp is run by Facebook.
    replies(1): >>23863572 #
    8. efreak ◴[16 Jul 20 20:39 UTC] No.23863572{3}[source]▶
    As a nonuser of WhatsApp, I don't care who owns it. Thinking the app comes from Asia is understandable; There's a large number of apps coming from Asia whose names sound nonsensical in the West (quite likely some of them have as much meaning as our own apps have, and are just foreign words or sounds). There's not many apps coming from Africa or South America these days (that I'm aware of), while Asia has quite a lot.
    9. gagege ◴[17 Jul 20 16:33 UTC] No.23872346{5}[source]▶
    Well that proves it, it's not a great name :)
    10. HeavyStorm ◴[21 Jul 20 23:50 UTC] No.23912214[source]▶
    I don't even have to open the link to know that it's that budweiser ad. That's where my mind goes too when I think about the name of the app.

    I think whatsapp has a nice ring to it, even if people doesn't know how to write it. Surely being able to write it on a store search is important, but not as important as sounding good.

    -----

    And does people get the name of Waze? It took me a while, because in this case not being a native English speaker is a real problem.

    11. HeavyStorm ◴[21 Jul 20 23:54 UTC] No.23912238{3}[source]▶
    85% of people hear their voice when reading / forming thoughts.

    And then there are the others [1].

    1 https://twitter.com/KylePlantEmoji/status/122171379291396506...