
Riot is now Element - J_tt
https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/
======
badrabbit
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.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
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.

~~~
ndarilek
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.

~~~
quasarj
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.

~~~
lostcolony
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.

~~~
gagege
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.

~~~
bigintjin
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.

~~~
gagege
Well that proves it, it's not a great name :)

------
easytiger
Press release pro tip: sidle in what the company or app does very early in.
Verging on all of the releases I read on HN don't do this but are for
companies I've not heard of. So you leave knowing almost nothing about the
company

~~~
MrDresden
That's a good point. I've noticed larger enterprises doing this with their
pr's, which has always struck me as bit silly when it is a house hold name
(Oracle, Canonical, VMWare etc) but ofc not everyone would know them. But for
smaller vendors this becomes even more important.

~~~
easytiger
Yes indeed its pretty universal for PLCs to do it.

Some examples to demonstrate

[1] ...LexisNexis® CounselLink®, a leading cloud-based enterprise legal
management solution for corporate law departments, today announced the
release...

[2] ...RecVue, Inc., the fastest growing next generation order-to-cash
automation platform, today announced...

etc

[1] [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lexisnexis-
counsell...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lexisnexis-counsellink-
releases-2020-enterprise-legal-management-trends-report-301092606.html) [2]
[https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/recvue-achieves-
soc...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/recvue-achieves-soc-1-and-
soc-2-compliance-for-strong-internal-controls-over-financial-reporting-and-
security-301093514.html)

------
usbfingers
If you dislike the new name, branding, or user experience, instead of arguing
over why or why not it is a good decision, I'd encourage you to get yourself
involved and be that change.

Before the rebrand, or even any talk user experience and design from Element
(Riot), I didn't want to wait and started working on a privacy centric matrix
client that focused on branding and user experience. I managed to get E2EE
working by myself within a month using the Matrix provided encryption library.

[https://syphon.org](https://syphon.org)

[https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon](https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon)

For the record, I don't think Element is a bad name. Regardless of the name
itself, this is a massive leap forward for their branding. The user experience
seems to have been cleaned up dramatically in the new versions of their iOS
and Android apps.

~~~
anon184925
I just tried this on Android from F-Droid. I couldn't get past the login page,
unfortunately. Bitwarden popped up to auto fill the form, but it didn't work.
I tried typing my credentials manually, but it was rough because of the weird
quirks with the text boxes. Why does the carat jump to the last character
after every keypress? It made it nearly impossible for me to correct a typo.
My password is pretty long, which royally confused the password input field.
After a certain number of characters, it just stopped displaying anything. It
also does not respect my system preference of not displaying the most recently
typed character unmasked. Finally, after all that, I clicked login and the
button just changed to a spinner forever.

I realize this is alpha quality software, but to claim to be focused on user
experience and have such horrible UI issues does not give me any confidence,
sadly.

~~~
usbfingers
I've addressed these problems you listed in version 0.0.19 but getting updates
to the F-Droid store is a very slow process. The next F-Droid release will
have auto updates enabled with the F-Droid team, so those and future issues
should be fixed relatively quick from that platform.

Regardless, thanks for trying it out.

Edit: feel free to post issues like this directly to the project in github if
you decide to try it out again

------
dividedbyzero
That's been long overdue and will hopefully help Matrix make inroads into more
conservative organizations; I believe the tech is really promising. It's a
definite liability, trying to introduce people to Matrix, when the de-facto
default client's name evokes all kinds of unhelpful associations – it doesn't
sound like work at all and it does sound like gamers, toys, apparently even
like a far-left political organisation. Element should be fine for everyone.

~~~
srg0
looking at you, git

~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
funny thing about git is as a non-Brit, I thought for the longest time it was
a made up word.

~~~
Xenoamorphous
I thought so too (not a native English speaker, had never seen that word
before) until I read a quote from Linus saying that he likes to name his
projects after himself.

------
izietto
I don't like the new name, is too generic. I think an original alternative
would have been better, like Trello, Slack, ...

~~~
gkoberger
I think those names are taken.

(Really though, Slack is as generic of a word as Element! It just had a strong
connotation now)

~~~
KingOfCoders
People often get confused, they think the word is strong (Nike,Google,...)
while the word nearly never is. As you've said it's the other way around, what
the company evokes in us with their product over time is brought back to the
name.

~~~
mytailorisrich
That does not mean that a generic name is fine.

It means that a unique, made-up word is fine because it will gain meaning. It
may sound strange now because it is new and unknown but that does not matter
because that will change. 'Google' went to a strange, made-up word, to being
an everyday noun and verb.

In that respect a made-up word is the best option because you start with a
blank slate and you can create its meaning.

Whereas a generic word already has meaning, several competing ones, even, and
you have to struggle against that to build your brand, so it's an inferior
choice.

~~~
KingOfCoders
Yes, I also tell people whom I consult to use a short, easy to remember
fantasy word. I like a mix, like Mailchimp which evokes images in customers.

Though as Apple, Nike, Windows, Slack, Segment have shown, the generic
approach can work.

------
totetsu
Previous thread
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863)
and blog post about why [https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-
changing/](https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/) and the blog post
about the new name [https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-
element/](https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/)

------
varbhat
Main reason is that they couldn't trademark the "Riot" name due to "Riot
Games" company.

Edit: They have mentioned this in the blog. Please read that before
downvoting.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Could they trademark Element though? I mean it is a very general term.

~~~
narrowtux
We tried to trademark Element and another generic abbreviation as a combined
name and even that was not possible. The german trademark bureau just sent us
printed wikipedia articles of both words as "proof" that it's not possible.

~~~
smichel17
I'm cracking up right now imagining that this was the _only_ thing you
received in reply.

~~~
narrowtux
haha of course not, but that was essentially their argument for the denial.

------
C4stor
After various HN threads about this company, and taking a tour on the
element.io website, I'm still not sure what this is about to be honest.

I understand it's a chat app, but

\- The pricing is really confusing (seems like the app is free, but having an
account is paying ?). \- Is this a professional thing, like slack, or more of
a whatsapp-like thing ? Trying to do both ? The whole differentation point
seems to be based on the Matrix thing, but it's not really clear why is that
important ? (I don't typically care about the backend of the app I use).

I mean, the front page says : "All-in-one secure chat app for teams, friends
and organisations. Keeps conversations in your control, safe from data-mining
and ads. Talk to everyone through the open global Matrix network, protected by
proper end-to-end encryption."

So, the starter is what everyone says. "Safe from data mining and ads" is
good, it makes me curious about what is the pricing then, and I wouldn't mind
paying a cheap price for a correct messaging app. And then there's this Matrix
bit, and I don't even know if it's good or bad. So I went to the pricing page
(which doesn't exist, but there are "plans") and here, well the app is free,
and I can get my account hosted either somewhere free, or either on the
Element Matrix servers, where it should be safe from eavesdropping ? But with
proper end to end encryption, it should be safe everywhere ? Or is the app by
default not end to end encrypted, but hosting it somewhere makes it so ? It
sounds really weird to be honest.

So really, good for you for renaming, but I don't think it's what will make me
change (even though since whatsapp is facebook owned, I'm ready to migrate
myself and my whole family on something else once the ads are there).

~~~
neiljohnson
Matrix is the protocol, Element is a client to access Matrix which it does so
via a matrix homeserver (which then federates across the rest of the Matrix).

So Element is free to use, but there are a range of servers to choose from.
The matrix.org server is free to use, though as the largest single instance on
the public federation is run on a best effort basis.

Alternatives are to either host your own server, or have someone else do that
for you. The payment plans that you are looking at reference Element Matrix
Services (EMS) which is a SaaS offering allowing you to spin up your own
server to be used by whoever you choose to give access to (friends/colleagues
etc). The advantages being that you get grater control of your data and
improved performance.

Using email as an analogy

Matrix = Email matrix.org / Matrix Hosted Services/ some other server =
Fastmail/Gmail/Hotmail etc Element = Thunderbird

~~~
jayp1418
Yes but does EMS allow white labeling clients also ?

~~~
Macha
The clients are mostly Apache 2 licensed, and at least Riot Web has config
options to swap out some of the branding at deploy time:
[https://github.com/vector-im/riot-
web/blob/develop/docs/conf...](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-
web/blob/develop/docs/config.md)

It's not a marketed use case though, so I'm sure you could find places the app
will still refer to itself as Riot (or now Element).

Alternatively the protocol is open so many third party clients exist:
[https://matrix.org/clients/](https://matrix.org/clients/) . Feature support
in third party clients is pretty unevenly distributed though, E2EE in
particular is supported in Riot and Seaglass, experimental in weechat-matrix
and nheko, and absent in basically every other client.

~~~
jayp1418
Got it..

------
natural219
I gotta say; I haven't paid attention to Matrix for years, but I downloaded
the Riot client again last week and HOLY COW. Everything is _so_ smooth,
beautiful, performant, and feature-filled.

They have Slack/Discord-like communities, awesome easy E2E verification, and
almost every feature I want out of Discord, including video/voice chat powered
by WebRTC out of the box.

Really incredible work the Matrix team has done on this. I was a
decentralization reseracher for years, and I'd never imagined things would get
this polished from a UI perspective. I think Matrix is the best current bet
for decentralization services (Urbit following up in a close second), and will
plan on digging in to hosting my own server at some point.

If you haven't used Riot / Element in a while, I highly recommend you give it
a try. Smooth as butter.

[edit: the bikeshedding here is infuriating. "Element chat" is a perfectly
fine Google query. users being entitled primadonnas (sorry, I know that's
hostile, but I think it's warranted) and expecting every software release to
have Google/Facebook tier marketing effort behind them is the #1 problem in
the adoption of decentralized platforms, and should be eradicated from civil
discourse about internet infrastructure. just my two cents.]

------
deckar01
> We’re obviously aware that Element is (once again) both a dictionary word
> and a mathematical term.

and a ~30 year old, mainstream skateboard brand owned by the billion dollar,
international Quiksilver company.

~~~
tripzilch
Also a chemistry term!

------
beeman
Great name I'd say! If I would consider converting people like my parents to a
new app, I'm sure Element has a bigger chance than Riot because of the
connotations with the name of the latter.

------
sixhobbits
Even as someone who has kind of been following along with Matrix development
and this renaming thing, this post is really confusing.

If you go through a major rebrand, you've probably spent something like 1000
hours thinking about names and what they mean.

Your users haven't.

Get someone else to write the explanation of the rebrand. You can't do it
yourself when you're too involved.

------
pteraspidomorph
I don't care about SEO, but as an infrequent user I always liked that Riot was
a snappy, two syllable, memorable name (I never forgot it). Synapse and Matrix
are also easy for me to remember, I must add. I suspect I may forget Element--
too close to a word I use every day (HTML elements, chemical elements, etc.)
We'll see. Either way I expect I can get there by looking up "matrix client,"
of course.

EDIT: one -> two

~~~
dfee
Riot is two syllables.

~~~
pteraspidomorph
Oh, sorry. I'm not a native english speaker.

------
troymc
One problem with "Element" is its potential for confusion with other,
similarly-named tech products, such as:

\- Adobe Photoshop Elements

\- Adobe Premiere Elements

\- Elementor, one of the more popular WordPress plugins

\- Element UI, a Vue 2.0 based component library

\- Elements XS, GIS-centric asset management software

There's even an IT company named Element Technologies: [https://www.ele-
ment.com/](https://www.ele-ment.com/) (no affiliation).

~~~
jesseb
There's also a prominent apparel/skateboarding company named Element which has
been around for decades and is the top search result for "element" for me.

[https://www.elementbrand.com/](https://www.elementbrand.com/)

------
surround
On the thread 3 months ago for _Launch HN: Riot (YC W20) - Phishing training
for your team_

> Hi Ben - cool product! Speaking as the lead for Riot.im, I would recommend
> picking another name asap, if nothing else because Riot Games has an awful
> lot of lawyers (as we know first hand, unfortunately).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677841](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677841)

Then, 22 days ago, _We’ve decided to rename riot_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863)

~~~
dmix
I know a couple other products/services named Element already... not that you
have to worry about lawyering but it's pretty generic and doesn't sound like a
messenger, sadly. Oh well, they are doing great work.

------
LarvaFX
I don't like the name because it is so generic and for me the word invokes no
association with communication whatsoever.

~~~
teruakohatu
I just think Element14. I agree with you, it is so generic as to be
meaningless. Signal makes sense. iMessage & Facetime do what they say.
Whatsapp at least sounds like a fun app even if the name is meaningless.

~~~
hoffs
I think of Element the skateboarding company

~~~
mitch-snipline
Same here.

------
rvz
While a name change was a sensible move, I had very high hopes for them to
choose a saner non-technical one with a more user-friendly focus, but this
name sounds very generic and is more cryptic that "Signal".

They now have to do some serious SEO to be the first result on a Google search
of "Element".

~~~
neiljohnson
Sorry you don't like the name, hopefully it will grow on you.

On SEO, quoting from the post itself "We’re obviously aware that Element is
(once again) both a dictionary word and a mathematical term - but in practice,
looking at search results for Element right now, the top hits are for
dictionary sites(!) and the field is wide open. Conversely, in a virgin
browser on VPN, Riot is the 4th hit on Google for Riot; second only to a
certain games company. In other words, we’ve shown that we can successfully
adopt dictionary words - and if you do find yourself lost searching in a maze
of mathematics, just throw in the word ‘chat’ to get back on track."

So yes there is a big SEO job ahead of us, we don't take anything for granted,
but see a viable path to getting a good ranking.

~~~
slightwinder
Maybe your Google-Bubble is just broken? For me searching for Element brings
up mostly companies and products which are using this name. Just a low number
of results are dictionaries and knowledge-sites. Good luck competing with all
of them.

~~~
kick
Your first sentence makes no sense, given in the comment right above you
(which is quoting the article) it points out that it was with a cookie-less
browser and a VPN. You're _far_ more likely to be the one who's bubbled in
differently than your average person.

------
x87678r
I still dont understand why Slack is popular when there is a free open source
solution matrix/riot/element that works just as well.

~~~
marcinzm
Slack and Matrix solve different problems. Slack is "a company wants it's
employees and select outside parties to communicate with themselves." Matrix
is "we want everyone to communicate with each other." A broader solution is
almost always less efficient for a specific constrained sub-problem.

For example, a Slack instance can be configured to log every conversation
(including DMs) for audit purposes by company admins. Matrix enforces e2e
encryption for peer-to-peer conversations and I believe disabling room
encryption requires code changes.

~~~
amandine
You can disable e2e on your server if you wish so. The option already exists
in Synapse and it is part of Element Matrix Services customers.

For those who are legally required to be on record, there are other ways to
keep track of the conversations for audit purposes without compromising the
e2e encryption. For example, every room could have an audit bot invited by
default, visible by the users, and which would record everything being said.
Then you can setup the access to the logs from the audit bot to only be
unencrypted in certain conditions, e.g. if the 2 halves of a key giving access
to the account are put together. It's secure, clear for the users and legally
compliant.

[disclaimer: I'm from the Element team]

~~~
marcinzm
Your comment reinforces my initial point: "A broader solution is almost always
less efficient for a specific constrained sub-problem."

It all sounds very complicated compared to paying a bit of money and toggling
a setting. For example, googling for "elements/riot/matrix audit bot" results
in no pertinent results from what I can tell. Being possible is not the same
thing as being easy to use.

edit: Also companies don't care about being clear to users except as legally
required or beneficial to the company. Employees not being constantly aware
that they're being watched all the time is a positive and not a negative.

------
gadders
I like what people are doing with Riot/Element/Matrix but it's still a bit
janky. Half the chats I join are filled with messages about missing session
keys.

------
lvturner
So many of these comments just feel like bikeshedding.

By most arguments here basecamp is an awful name for a company and hey is a
terrible name for an email application - it doesn't seem to be holding them
back though.

For those not familiar with bikeshedding please see:
[http://bikeshed.com/](http://bikeshed.com/)

~~~
boffinism
I mean, the article is literally a press release about a name change. Of
course the comments are going to be a discussion about the name change rather
than anything more substantial about the product or business or underlying
tech.

------
dfee
I speak English, but I can’t follow what this means:

> In fact we have simplified all our naming: Element is also the name for New
> Vector (the company behind Riot) while Modular, our flagship Matrix hosting
> service, has become Element Matrix Services.

Is New Vector now names Element, too? Or is this some sort of nickname? A
doing business as name?

~~~
Arathorn
Riot -> Element

New Vector -> Element

Modular -> Element Matrix Services

(Although we haven't legally changed New Vector's name yet).

------
shash7
Do these people care about search results? With a name like that, most people
will have a difficult time searching for element related stuff.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Well, quoting them:

> We’re obviously aware that Element is (once again) both a dictionary word
> and a mathematical term - but in practice, looking at search results for
> Element right now, the top hits are for dictionary sites(!) and the field is
> wide open.

~~~
bkor
I tried searching for Element in the Google Play store. It suggests an app
dedicated to Asian gay men. The website directs to Riot.im.

From the article: > RiotX (our ground-up rewrite of Riot Android) has exited
beta, and replaces Riot Android as Element

RiotX I can find/see, but it shows as a beta. It's not called Element.

I guess it's a slow rollout?

I used Riot ages ago, it was the suggested solution to have IRC on mobile. It
wasn't that reliable plus it was crazy slow (search . They now suggest Rocket
chat, it isn't slow but it doesn't do IRC. So now the community is divided
across loads of platforms. There's also some web based things, e.g. Discourse,
some still use mailing lists, etc. Plus things like Gitlab. It used to be much
easier to follow things ("lurk").

~~~
neiljohnson
The new app is with Google, we're just waiting on them and it will be live
asap.

Folks on iOS can pick it up here
[https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067](https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067)

~~~
majewsky
Will it be an update that replaces the current RiotX on my phone, or will I
have to download it as a separate app?

~~~
neiljohnson
It will replace the current Riot Android App. So if you are an early adopter
of RiotX you will need to download the main app.

~~~
smichel17
edit: commented before reading TFA, it'll probably be a new app.

Same for F-droid? I suppose I'll need to be testing the migration process
again..

------
40four
I was never really aware of these products before, and I’m very interested! So
I browsed over to the main site, found the pricing page and got this.

 _” We 're busy building our pricing table & purchasing experience on mobile,
for now please visit this page on your desktop.”_

Um, what? I mean, I’m honestly more interested in self hosting, but this
really seems like a good way to miss out on a lot of sales.

Won’t something simple suffice as a placeholder, until the larger ‘experience’
is finished? How many people have seen this when they aren’t near a desktop,
only to never return?

------
olah_1
Awesome! And now that RiotX is out of beta, please divert those resources to
Element iOS because it _desperately_ needs some UX love.

------
teekert
The post references their new website [0] and talks about RiotX, their new
website [1] however links to Riot.im [2], not RiotX [3], what to get?

Also, I have to set a password, but also a recovery password which should not
be the same... Yet, I store them together in my KeepassXC db. Why would that
be? Oh, now I run into a message key, the third to store in the same db entry
:)

[0] [https://element.io/](https://element.io/)

[1] [https://element.io/get-started](https://element.io/get-started)

[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.app)

[3]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.riot...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.riotx)

~~~
neiljohnson
We are still in the review queue for Android. iOS folks can pick it up the
Element release here
[https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067](https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067)

~~~
teekert
Ah, ok, I just entered the preview, I guess then I also get the latest
greatest?

------
lrvick
Love the name. Simple, and is going to be pretty hard for society to attach
negative connotations to it.

Elements are the flexible foundation of everything and in turn Element can be
a flexible foundation for communication.

At the end of the day it boils down to getting control of a namespace and then
owning it over time.

Slack and Apple have clearly shown this works just fine.

------
asimops
What I don't understand: 'Riot is now Element', yet when you click on 'Get
Element' on the website and select the android app > 'Riot.im' by 'Vector
Creations Limited' package name 'im.vector.app' IMHO if you rebrand it,
everything should be in place.

------
abrowne
Another post on the homepage now: "Element wins deal to supply half a million
licences for German education system". I was going to point out that it's a
pretty generic name being used by other groups, but when I read that linked
article I see it's the same Element :-D

------
cpeterso
Just for fun: here's the City Barge pub in London mentioned in the blog post's
UI screenshot. :)

[https://www.timeout.com/london/bars-and-pubs/city-
barge](https://www.timeout.com/london/bars-and-pubs/city-barge)

------
justaj
PSA for all Riot/Element Android users: RiotX came out of beta too soon. Voice
and video calls don't seem to be implemented in non-DM encrypted rooms. So if
you created an e2e room and invited someone there, you can no longer call
them.

------
greatgib
It will be impossible to find on Google. Also, I'm wondering if it a good
choice for such a project to use the hipster '.io' domain regarding the risk
in a near future with this domain name.

~~~
chessmango
Feel like I'm missing something important here. What's happening with .io?

~~~
the-dude
Questionable governance : [https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain-names-
for-produc...](https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain-names-for-
production-traffic-b6aa17eeac20)

------
reilly3000
Anybody who is questioning the need for the a name change in the first place
should read up on the story of Piwik, Piwik Pro, and Matomo. Hostile forks are
real, and they are fantastic messes.

~~~
Avamander
Mumble has the same problem with Mumble com but the official one is
Mumble.info.

------
nix23
Bravo i have to say. Riot was a really good name for a project in the post
NSA/Snowden time, but since we already forgot that, Element is much more
Acceptable for the big wash ;)

------
aaaaarghZombies
OK serious question perhaps someone connected to matrix / element will see
this.

The name change from riot coincided with the murder of George Floyd and
following surge unrest under the banner of Black Lives Matter. What's the
teams position this, are they trying to distance themselves from the protests,
if so why? If not, why?

------
shmerl
Can't connect to Element after logging in. Even old Riot.im stopped working
properly. A pretty bumpy switch I suppose.

------
Twisell
Dunno elsewhere but in France pretty solid fist results on both Google and DDG
referring to element hardware from matrix audio (founded 2009). Look like once
a legal team enjoyed the fun of legal dispute they always ask for more...

[https://www.matrix-digi.com](https://www.matrix-digi.com)

------
jakubnarebski
It looks like Riot.im accounts got forcible password change - at least I
cannot login with my saved riot.im password to element.io

There is nothing of note there in my case, but resetting/changing password
supposedly means loosing conversation history. Not good!

------
dharma1
Nice, look forward to the web/desktop version! I think the name is fine,
people will routinely use the new name in a few months time. Better to change
the name now than 10 million users later.

The new site looks great, but the pricing page is a bit confusing.

Godspeed!

------
paride5745
Now I wish Mattermost would become a Matrix client!

------
arkano
Not to be confused with element.ai

------
lousken
any plans to fix riot.imX beta on older android versions (5.X)? my friend
can't even send messages (they are all just red) since some 0.9X version (not
sure which exactly)

------
cyberbanjo
Didn't they just rename it from something else?

------
adultSwim
Riot, Slack, Discord, ... those names sound bad

------
andersonrkton
So the game developer is now the Linux distro.

~~~
neilalexander
The distro I believe you're thinking of is "elementaryOS".

------
subroutine
Discord is next.

~~~
holler
I think they'd have to change more than their name. The entire nomenclature of
their app is gaming focused. That would also expose them to great risk of
losing their core user base, at a time when another company Guilded has just
launched a strictly gaming-focused chat app.

~~~
jjice
They've started to make changes, like changing their TLD from .gg to .com, and
they removed the game store. They had a popup after a recent update describing
the changes and why their doing it (to appeal to more than just gamers). I
think that other than those bits of branding, it can be pretty gamer agnostic,
though I haven't used it in a workplace to actually catch the inconsistencies.

~~~
holler
> they removed the game store

seems like that might be because no one was playing?
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/13/20864278/discord-nitro-
ga...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/13/20864278/discord-nitro-games-
subscription-bundle-discontinued)

It certainly can be gamer-agnostic, but if they lose the gamer base, it could
be significant for their success.

------
tantalor
Is this not Riot Games?

------
bzb3
Sometimes it feels like riot is being sabotaged from the inside.

~~~
notthemessiah
Maybe they could have renamed it Agent Provocateur. Still a better name than
Element.

------
sherri-me
I like it

------
J_tt
Blog post: [https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-
element/](https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/)

I couldn't find it when I initially posted this.

While I understand the change, it was definitely awkward timing given that I
was championing a transition to Matrix. I've been encouraging my coworkers to
download the client, and next thing I know the website has completely changed
and they've removed the link to download the desktop client.

~~~
Arathorn
We're just doing the desktop builds of Element now - you can grab the last
release at
[https://riot.im/download/desktop](https://riot.im/download/desktop), but the
download link should be fixed shortly.

HN: It'd be cool to fix the submission to link to the
[https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/](https://element.io/blog/welcome-
to-element/) rather just element.io for more context :)

------
numeromancer
Maybe they should have called it "Protest".

------
echelon
Speaking of names, I'm upset that the username I go by is taken. I'm echelon @
{ gmail, HN, Twitter, Github, Gitlab, Square Cash, etc }, but found Riot /
Matrix just a few months too late to get my username.

I'm not satisfied with the "just stand up your own server" response as an
alternative.

I know it's cutting off my nose, but I've avoided using it because of this.
I'm OCD about stupid usernames.

I wish unused usernames got garbage collected.

I really like how Discord handles usernames.

~~~
tasogare
Well your username is made of a single common name existing in the dictionary,
this situation was very predictable.

