I've looked at a bunch of things and you're correct. the 1for.one precedes jobsonic. Basically just this summer it's had 3 separate names.

Wow, the author's description "anti-SEO name" doesn't quite do these justice. "1for.one" is cringey but "wrkriot.com" is just straight VC repellent.

Not disputing you, but why is WrkRiot so repellent? It's unique and recognizable. I'll admit that "Riot" is just weird, but is that the main reason?

(not trolling, I'm serious)

This is just pure opinion, but to me it is hard to read and unprofessional. It is certainly unique, but it doesn't project seriousness, which is what I want out of a job discovery service. Omitting the vowel just has the ring of a shady knockoff, scammer, or malware site that capitalizes on typos. Maybe I'm just not used to seeing the consonant string in trademarks or company names, but it strikes me as peculiar rather than creative or edgy.

Second thought: this is a company which can't even manage to register "workriot.com". Even if "WrkRiot" is the brand, I would expect them to grab the domain with the more obvious spelling and have it redirect to wrkriot, but it turns out "workriot.com" is registered to a Finnish hosting provider sitting on the domain. So to recap: the domain with the more obvious alternate spelling of the company is (very likely) up for sale but they still haven't managed to acquire it. That does not engender much confidence in their marketing or management.

Yes, I think I would pass on this venture.

In general misspellings are considered bad for SEO because search engines suggest correcting their name to something else. I'm not sure whether that applies here but I have seen it for startups that vowel drop weirdly, etc.

Thank you for the SEO-specific reply. I was curious about that aspect, opinions on professionalism aside.

Because misspelling your name, while quirky, doesn't exactly express professionalism.

Flickr?