The Hoiio name

You are not the only one to ask this: Why the name hoiio?

I would like to give my own answer to this holy question in one word:

Ambition 

We want to revolutionize the way we say Hello. We want a name that can go global, a name that is neither English, Spanish, African or Chinese.We want a name that is for the whole world. We want to add this name to the dictionary, to your language, just like what google did with search. This is how ambitious we are.

But if you ask me how such a name is first thought, my honest reply will be

It is a free domain name waiting for us to find it (:

We grabbed www.hoiio.com for free. The name was freely there for 20 years since domain name started, waiting for us to grab it when the time comes. I call this fate.

If you need more reasons why hoiio is a great name, I shall give you some:

• Great slogan goes with great name: Hoiio - the smarter way to say Hello
  
• The similarity with Hoiio, Google and Yahoo is that they all have two O's.
• Hoiio is really right. Don't believe? Type it out with your keyboard.
• Type Hoiio on your mobile and you get 46446. We serve you 24 hours a day! (4+6+4+4+6 = 24)
• We have 5 digits short code just nice. 46446. Google cannot even do that!
• Programmers had been writing Hello World. Its time for Hoiio World.

My first contribution to WURFL

I have always support the way WURFL open source community works. If you do not know what WURFL is, it is simply does device recognition using devices' user agent.

My first contributions are:

1. LG KS20: device_os is 'Windows Mobile OS'
   
2. Dopod 900: device_os is 'Windows Mobile OS'
3. Dopod 838Pro: Added this new device
   

Strangely, there are only 2 Dopod phones in the database. I wonder are Asians not using WURFL, or we are not contributing to the database?

Vodafone the ignorant

Below is an article blogged by Simon Judge, the all powerful mobile developer. Indeed the interview is fascinating, to the point that I think Vodafone is a big, proud and ignorant mobile player. That is harmful to all of us. Read here about another instance where Vodafone is abusing its power. Do they know how harmful they are because of their ignorance?

There is a fascinating interview with Arun Sarin, Vodafone chief executive, on the FT site today. It gives an insight into Vodafone thinking. I particularly liked the following part…

"Q: Given the entry of Google and Nokia, all pushing on mobile services, how do you avoid Vodafone becoming a pipe down which others send services?

A: Most importantly, we have 240m customers. We have the relationship with the customer, they are either buying top-up cards from Vodafone, or we are billing them on a monthly basis. Just the simple fact we have the customer and billing relationship is a hugely powerful thing that nobody can take away from us. We could lose our customers and then, yes, they could be gone.

The second thing is we know where the customers are, in terms of location. We know precisely where you are. Frankly only we know where you are. The handset manufacturer that sold you the handset does not know where you are. But we know where you are. So if you say at the most basic level say we have got a customer relationship, we have got billing and we know where you are, these are hugely important things. So whoever comes into the marketplace is going to have to work through us."

Arun obviously hasn’t heard of Bango, Sharewire, Paypal and even Google Checkout. He hasn’t heard that, due to network operator inability to share information, there are already third party databases of network operator cell ids that can be used for location. He also hasn’t heard that a large number of future phones will incorporate GPS. He doesn’t understand that it’s not about the network operator knowing where the phone is, it’s about the phone knowing where it is.

Read the transcript - I also believe the Vodafone strategy involves an over-reliance on brands.