Hooked on Fonics, and the Tragedy of Domain Name Driven Business Naming

| tech | startups | bullshit |

I have long thought that it was slightly ironic that some of the most successful tech companies of our generation have been created around misspelled names. The reason for this of course, is due to limited amount of English words that can be used in a domain name, and the continued belief that if your company does not have a .com domain name then you may as well close shop right away.

I am guilty of this myself of course, since Statusy.co is a made up name that is a misspelling of “status” (and I did not even have the benefit of snagging a .com).

I wanted to bring special attention to this gem.

fonics.co.uk is a startup that is supposed to help kids learn how to read through the use of phonics. I find it utterly ironic that even in the world of education technology which is arguably the last bastion of hope for an educated future society, there is yet another misspelled name for a company.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

Elseless

Here's a little "cognitive complexity" tip for your next programming project: get rid of your else statements.

via flower.codes January 4, 2026

LIVE from GitHub Universe: Inside the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund

I had a chat with Greg Cochran (GitHub), Christian Grobmeier (log4j), Michael Geers (evcc), and Camila Maia (ScanAPI) about the GitHub Secure OpenSource Fund. It was recorded at the last day of GitHub Universe 2025.

via Carlos Becker January 4, 2026

Clicks Communicator

Clicks: A new kind of mobile communicator Designed for doing, not doomscrolling. That tagline definitely got my attention. Based on the design and some of the copy, it made me think it was a more...

via Chris Hannah January 3, 2026

Generated by openring