Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > August > 06
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Supplemental: Thoof shuts down, Dell ad agency hides Apple goods?
Two more items to share with you today, both lobbed our way by Austin blogger Jeff Beckham.
First off, this item is too delicious not to share: according to Mediabistro.com’s AgencySpy blog, employees at the Austin offices of Dell Inc.’s ad agency Enfatico (Gesundheit!) swapped all of their Apple equipment for PCs in anticipation of a visit from Michael Dell.
According to the item, which was said to be confirmed by inside sources, the switcheroo was quite expensive and was just one problem at the fledgling agency. If it’s true, you must admit it’s just a tiny bit hilarious.
It reminds me of when people dress up in ties and dress clothes when the CEO is visiting. Except this was thousands of dollars worth of hardware.
Come on, Michael Dell. Did you really think there’s a high-end ad agency that exclusively uses PCs? Really?
In more somber news, Austin startup Thoof.com, which was trying to combine community content like Digg.com with an artificial intelligence backbone that could be applied to other kinds of sites, has shut its doors. We wrote about them last year and I found their leader, Ian Clarke, to be kind of brilliant. We wish them the best in their new endeavors.
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App store fumbles, ‘Grimm’ is just grim
The things you need to know today:
- When Apple opened up the mighty digital floodgates of the iPhone/iPod Touch App Store, people worried that the sheer number of offerings may signify a lack of quality control. Not to worry! If this approved app is any indication, there is no quality control at all to worry about.
- Our Twitter pal Paul Terry Walhus shot lots of footage at last week’s Social Media Camp/Mashable Austin party. Here is that footage, trimmed down to 46.5 minutes.
- Want to instant message with exciting people in foreign lands but too lazy to learn their language? MeGlobe purports to do instant instant message translating. If anybody gets married as a result of using this technology, I would really like to hear about it.
- I’ll be writing full reviews of some new games, but here are my quick impressions: “Geometry Wars 2” on Xbox Live Arcade is darn near perfect; addictive and as refined a sequel as you will find. “1942: Joint Strike,” also on XBLA, is a surprisingly potent remake of the arcade classic. I love it so far. After playing one episode of “American McGee’s Grimm,” available on Gametap.com, I can only ask, WHY!? It is awful, a horrible little piece of junk. If it were an action, you could convict it as a crime. I hope the next two episodes are better, but I have grim (hee hee? No?) hopes for the series.
- We have several new Statesman newsroom people using Twitter after the Sunday piece. I won’t go into the whole Statesman Twitter strategy here (partly because it is still evolving and I am not in charge of it), but Robert Quigley is a good person to follow if you want to know what’s up with the Statesman and what we’re tweeting.
- Speaking of Twitter, some UT students have created a more visual primer that you may enjoy.
- Comments on the Cuil.com review seem to confirm that it is, in its present form, a craptastic search engine.
- I am on vacation next week, so please excuse me if my brain gradually stops working over the next two days. It is merely preparing.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, Phones, Videogames
