Anschutz may be close to snaring soccer star
Are Philip Anschutz and English soccer star David Beckham joining forces to create the sport’s ultimate power couple? Beckham is house-hunting in Los Angeles and is in discussions to join the Los Angeles Galaxy, a pro soccer team owned by Anschutz, according to gossip website tmz.com.
Anschutz helped launch Major League Soccer in 1996 and owns three other teams in the league. Beckham is perhaps the sport’s most recognizable star and is married to former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, who reportedly wants to launch a Hollywood career. Anschutz, by the way, also happens to own Anschutz Film Group, which produces films for the big screen.
Beckham spokesman Paul Bloch denied that the Beckhams are planning a move to the United States, according to the tmz.com report.
Old guy on MySpace is really a coffee shop
A Five Points coffee shop is looking for friends.
Blackberries Ice Cream and Coffee Lounge recently set up a MySpace page (www.myspace.com/blackberrieslounge). The coffee lounge has about 10 friends, one of them being MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson, who automatically becomes your “friend” when you set up a page.
Blackberries owner and MySpace friend Sudan Muhammad says he’s still working on the page, which he plans to eventually use to post information about events at the coffee lounge.
MySpace is “something I’ve used personally for a while now,” he said. “I see a lot of people going on there to promote themselves, and I wanted a younger crowd to know we’re out there.”
Muhammad said he would like to see a separate area on MySpace for businesses like his, as some of the required information on the Blackberries page doesn’t make sense for businesses. In case you’re wondering, Blackberries is a 99-year-old single male from Denver. He’s an Aries, doesn’t drink or smoke and is looking to network and make friends.
Graffiti goes wireless at Boulder sub shop
Businesses may soon have a new way to attract customers: wireless graffiti.
Dubbed Wiffiti, this new technology, which was installed at sandwich shop Half Fast Subs in Boulder in mid-June, lets people send text messages via cellphones to a large screen positioned in a bar or restaurant, where the messages can be read by everyone there.
“People are having fun with it,” said Stephen Schein, a co- owner of Half Fast Subs, which is one of only eight U.S. locations that have Wiffiti screens.
Wiffiti screens have been installed at three locations in the Boston area and in Chicago; College Park, Md.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Seattle.
The locations were chosen because there was an opportunity to reach a young audience and to make “a bigger splash” in markets that weren’t too huge, said Stephen Randall, chief executive and founder of LocaModa, the Boston-based technology company that developed Wiffiti.
Randall said Wiffiti is designed to give people an opportunity to air their views and connect with others. At many cafes, he said, he often sees people working on their laptops, never looking up. With a screen on the wall, they have an excuse to look up and even talk to others about messages.
“Once you get a community of users, there’s value to that,” Randall said.
One value, he said, is the ability eventually to draw local advertising onto the screens.
The eight screens taking part in the initial test of the project are funded by sponsors including ntwrktruth (Network Truth), part of the American Legacy Foundation’s youth smoking-prevention campaign.
At Half Fast Subs, “ntwrktruth” appears at the bottom of the screen. Randall said LocaModa hopes to have 1,000 screens around the United States within 18 months.
Two hardworking Coloradans honored
A Frederick telephone line foreman has been named the 2006 Dickies Colorado Worker of the Year, and a Colorado Springs emergency room nurse and mechanic has been named a national finalist in the same contest.
Danny McCullough, 30, a electrical and telephone line foreman for Infrasource Underground Sources, earned the Colorado title in the 15th annual contest after he was nominated by his wife, Stephanie.
Jeremy Gianzero, 26, an ER nurse and mechanic in Colorado Springs, is among five national finalists. Voting for a national winner is underway online at www.workeroftheyear.com.
The other finalists are Lance Beto, 42, an electrical lineman in Helena, Mont.; David Bildstein, 42, a steel mill bricklayer in Cleveland; Janet Buras, 49, an elementary school principal in Bay St. Louis, Miss.; and Chris Davidson, 36, a pro mountain-bike team mechanic from Salt Lake City.
“The American work ethic always shines through in the top entries,” says Jon Ragsdale, vice president of marketing for the Williamson-Dickie Mfg. Co. “These are the unsung heroes of our economy who take pride in doing a good job every day, and Dickies wants give them the recognition they deserve.”
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
