Will the real Zoho please stand up?

While browsing today, I found a site called Zohho.com, that claims to be a mobile social networking site. Make new friends and find old ones by sending them sms. Novel idea, although I personally think it is very intrusive. But thats not the reason I'm writing this. Look at the name! Sounds way too much like Zoho, a company I admire and have blogged about in the past. Dont do this, guys! You're damaging the brand value of both companies. I mean, if you are serious about your business, do not choose to be a me-too (name-wise). It is so un-cool, almost parasitic in nature.

I wonder if the Zoho guys know about this, and if they do, are they doing anything about it?

Update: Apparently they do. Arvind from Zoho sent me mail that their legal department is going to send them an anti-cybersquatting cease and desist notice shortly. I will update this post as this develops further.

Further Update: Zohho is now renamed to Wohho. The name issue got resolved quite quickly and amicably. Zohho.com also redirects to Wohho. Now I do not mind linking to their website.

Busy Weekends Ahead: Foss.in and Bangalore Barcamp

Two very interesting events coming up in the next two weeks (weekends, really). Foss.in and Bangalore Barcamp.

For the uninitiated, Foss.in is a gathering (literally - there are scores of people) of people interested and/or associated with Free and Open Source Software in India. It is happening this week: 24-26 November. I went there last year - thats where I got hooked onto Ruby on Rails. Let me see what bites me this year. There's an Andrew Cowie session, that I will attend for sure. Be sure to register if you are interested.

The Barcamp is happening on 2-3 Dec, look here for more details. Barcamp is strictly for noisy, opinionated geeks. All participants, no attendees, they say. Piece of trivia: The name Barcamp came up as a response to O' Reilly's annual, by invitation meet called FooCamp. The House of Lords and the House of Commons, if you will. Pass the word around for the commoners to meet, and ask them to register here.

Another piece of trivia: foobar, acme corp are called Metasyntactic Variables. Wow, I didnt know it had a name. Think of all the people I could have confused via my design document or spec.