Blue's Clues: A new gadget to give you hindsight? From IBM?
IBM may be behind the new company being touted in ads today according to this New York Times story (registration required) after some investigative reporting put various clues together. Especially the fact that IBM is a major client of the advertising company (Ogilvy & Mather) behind the ad and IBM CEO is expected to outline IBM's vision of the future of computing, "with companies buying information technology as they would a utility service, somewhat like electricity."
Bagotronics? It is the ungainly name of a company that, according to a full-page advertisement in The New York Times yesterday, sells a "business time machine" that gives its user "the power to go back in time and erase all your costly business blunders."
The remarkable gadget, the ad continues, "performs as well as a machine that costs six times as much, but at only three easy payments of $299.95, it's affordable to companies of any size."
...Prominently shown in the ad is the ostensible company's Web site, called www.bagotronics.com. Clicking most anywhere on the Web site calls up a message with the admonition to pick up the Thursday issue of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or The San Jose Mercury News for more details.
This is all, it seems, an elaborate — and expensive — ad for an ad. But for what?