January 20, 2002

4:55 PM

Watching the golden globes there was a commercial for something called mlife, so this link works, and is quite content-free. anyone have any ideas, other than this :) which somehow i don't think is cool enough for a big ad-campaign.
posted by rhyax (32 comments total)

and yes, i know i'm playing right into the evil corporations hands, but hey, it's fun. and i like their color scheme :)
posted by rhyax at 4:57 PM on January 20, 2002

Never again.

I got sucked into the mysterious orange ad campaign in Ottawa a couple of years ago. Strange, clue-laden websites and commercials tracked the approach of "something", while billboards and boats and elephants announced "It's coming!"

It turned out to be Alcatel: a telephone company from Europe.

Whatever mLife is, it probably sucks.
posted by Marquis at 5:03 PM on January 20, 2002

Why am I thinking it's MetLife? Color scheme, perhaps. I certainly hope it isn't. Yeah, insurance, how revolutionary!

On the plus side, maybe its MetaLife, something Matt invented to live our lives for us so we can sit here and post all day.
posted by jonmc at 5:13 PM on January 20, 2002

Anybody who sends in a guess needs to mget an mLife.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:15 PM on January 20, 2002

well, one of the little blurbs on the site is something about insurance, so that would be boring. and they act like kids should get it, like it's a product of some kind.
posted by rhyax at 5:17 PM on January 20, 2002

From the patent office:

Goods and services: Telecommunications services, namely the transmission of voice, data, images, audio, video and information via telephone, satellite and global computer networks; wireless and cellular voice, data and paging services; voice messaging services; paging services; electronic mail services; wireless roaming services.

Alphie, Inc. CORPORATION DELAWARE 1201 Third Avenue Suite 4800 Seattle WASHINGTON 98101
posted by barkingmoose at 5:17 PM on January 20, 2002

WTF kind of patent is that?

"Hey, lets patent the entire information age!"
posted by delmoi at 5:24 PM on January 20, 2002

The patent office also handles trademarks.
posted by zztzed at 5:53 PM on January 20, 2002

thats not the patent office its the trademark office
posted by yevge at 5:54 PM on January 20, 2002

Right, it's the patent and trademark office, and I did a trademark search. My search expired, too, but the point is mLink looks like nothing more than a phone company, as Marquis suspected.
posted by barkingmoose at 6:10 PM on January 20, 2002

Was that mLink or mLife? Different things...
posted by kfury at 6:16 PM on January 20, 2002

I think it's along the lines of a Homer Simpson-ism: mmmmmmmmm........life....
posted by jazon at 6:34 PM on January 20, 2002

well, the registrant of the Domain (mlife.com + .net) is [e-mail], which when I searched google revealed a possible link to Washington Mutual. Chances are the registrant contact email is bogus cause mlife doesn't sound very bank-like.
posted by shoepal at 6:54 PM on January 20, 2002

"Gabbo!"
posted by Grum at 7:18 PM on January 20, 2002

Thank you Grum, that's just what I was thinking. At least the thread hasn't degenerated into how vapid and pointless all that Hollywood glad-handing is.
posted by insomnyuk at 7:24 PM on January 20, 2002

The 'mLife' service mark is owned by Alphie, Inc.

Wtf. 'Alphie'? It's true. All the good tech names have been taken.

What's it all about, Alphieeeeeeeee?
posted by Slithy_Tove at 7:26 PM on January 20, 2002

mr_crash_davis: Anybody who sends in a guess needs to mget an mLife.

Was that an FTP joke? ... if not, um, I guess I'm the geek.
posted by malphigian at 8:01 PM on January 20, 2002

Mobile Life... just when the whole eThis and iThat was diminishing, now we have the whole mTthing.
posted by riffola at 8:19 PM on January 20, 2002

malphigian, thank you for not leaving me to think I was the only geek.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:26 PM on January 20, 2002

A whois search shows Alphie, Inc., as the registrant of the domain name mlife.com. Alphie Inc., also has the following trademarks in the works: mplace, mhome, mtopia, mzone, and mmode.
posted by bragadocchio at 8:30 PM on January 20, 2002

Malphigian: isn't it wget not mget? ... if not, I guess I'm the linux user. :-)

Also the "patent" above refers only to what kind of services it utilizes -- not how it works or what it really does. My guess: a cellular videophone. Blah.
posted by bloggboy at 8:31 PM on January 20, 2002

Also, rather than a "trademark." mlife is a "service mark" which means rather than describing goods, it describes a service.
posted by bragadocchio at 8:53 PM on January 20, 2002

Mget is indeed a valid ftp command for getting multiple files and a potential name for a delivery service a la kozmo.
posted by shoepal at 9:08 PM on January 20, 2002

mlife: Next-generation multi-platform mobile data services, offering real-time Internet access over various devices, such as 2.5G and 3G cell phones. A joint venture of Lucent, eServ. Ltd, WaterCove Networks, Macalla Software and other tech/telecom firms, and overseen by Perkins Coie, LLP, the Internet law firm whose phone number (specifically, partner Brent Sanders') and address were used to register the mlife.com domain name under the guise of Alphie, Inc.

Although that's just a guess, of course. ;)
posted by verdezza at 9:19 PM on January 20, 2002

[e-mail] turns up on this homeless activist list as the contact for Washington Mutual, a financial services company. Their street address:

Washington Mutual, Inc.
Investor Relations 1201 Third Avenue, WMT2140, Seattle, Washington 98101
[phone]

looks like the same place Alphie is located. So those ems are probably short for "mutual".
posted by nikzhowz at 10:01 PM on January 20, 2002

Nah. "m" = "mobile," or "mobility."
posted by verdezza at 10:09 PM on January 20, 2002

mLife explained.
posted by beagle at 5:08 AM on January 21, 2002

Well that explanation makes it sound really boring :(
posted by insomnyuk at 7:04 AM on January 21, 2002

Boring indeed. I thought we were talking about MILFs. I must learn to read better and stop thinking about hot moms all the time.

mLIFE becomes mILF...P to P mobile broadband moms I'd like to fuck xml streaming service.
posted by thebigpoop at 7:29 AM on January 21, 2002

I was invited to a top-secret demonstration of mLife for internet luminaries, and I can't tell you what it is, but I can say that it's so revolutionary, you won't have to force people to architect cities around it. It'll just happen!
posted by rusty at 11:30 AM on January 21, 2002

It's not Microsoft wanting to play God?
posted by hockeyman at 7:35 PM on January 21, 2002

It's not Microsoft wanting to play God?

Isn't that more than a bit redundant? ;)
posted by verdezza at 8:26 PM on January 21, 2002