Not being a huge fan of Facebook, and the millions of people I have never heard of who want to be my friend and poke me, I was amused to read that just as in the US, Facebook users in Europe will no longer be able to waste their time on "Scrabulous" — the online imitation of the Scrabble board game, which has now been yanked by Facebook in all countries except India in response to a copyright tussle over the game.
Facebook said Monday it decided to block access to this infantile pursuit throughout most of the world in response to a formal request to do so from Mattel, which owns the rights to Scrabble outside North American.
Scrabulous' developers — Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla of Calcutta — removed the game from Facebook in North America three weeks ago, in response to a federal suit filed in New York by Hasbro, which owns the rights to Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada.
Rumour has it that they have decided that in order to avoid all this bull-s*h*i*t in the future, they are sticking to the Rat Vindaloo take out trade.
Touch of the post-colonials here if you ask me. Whilst I agree that Facebook is inane and poisonous, not sure there's call for the nasty whiff of racism.
Pass me the elephant gun you funny little man, I'm off to endanger some species. Huzzah!
Rat Vindaloo - think i had that on friday.
I'm sorry - what on earth do vindaloo and popadoms have to do with two people who have designed a very successful games application?
Apparently GfK have ended talks with TNS. They're going to stick to drinking beer and selling bratwurst whilst dancing around to accordion music in funny little hats. Oh, do they know something about market research? Who cares?
This is a real shame I was a big fan of Scrabulous it was about the only reason to visit Facebook. It's basically the only thing I did at work all day as well other than turned up.
Talking of rats - according to the Guardian Cambodians are turning to rats in food crisis: "Spicy field rat dishes increasingly seen on menus as boom in.." http://tinyurl.com/5dprog
I agree with your infantile pursuit assessment. Half the office on my office floor seem to spend most of the day playing it in a trance zombie-like state.
Was this article ghost written by Jade Goody?
Can someone please explain how George's comment is racist? I think people are being over-zealous in their eagerness to appear right on. If I made a comment about Germans and beach towels no one would complain I was being racist. There's a difference between being racist and making a witty comment about a national stereotype and it's dangerous to confuse the two.
I'm with Frank. Everyone zip it and get back to work.
If you can't stand the heat you will not get a triple word score. I think its a real shame. Nice post George P.
Frank/Jacquie - is a rat vindaloo wallah the image you conjure up when you think of an Indian? Do you honestly see nothing wrong in that?
Frank, my immediate thought wasn't racism, it was: "DUH? wtf does all that have to do with the real story? Irrelevant and showing very limited imagination."
I don't think my GfK/German stereotypes comment was racist but it was irrelevant to the TNS/GfK/WPP story and chosen because it should demonstrate how stereotypes show lack of thinking.
As it happens, I also think "rat" vindaloo IS racist. I suspect those guys have better taste in food than George - how's that for a stereotype?
The comments are just not funny, regardless of whether they are racist or not. They might have been funny c. 1973 on The Les Dawson Show. Brand Republic need an injection of new blood in these blogs. Also does it count as a blog just to reproduce a couple of paras of a news story from elsewhere? Compare this old Parker guy against Rory S's blogs elsewhere on this site and you'll notice a huge difference in quantity and quality.
Clear out the dead wood now!
Racist or not, the blog post lacks insight, reveals no new information and fails to entertain. Why post at all?
George Parker
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 17 Nov 2009
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