Parsleyent, Sagient, Rosemarient and Thymient

The late-90’s dot-com “-ent” school of company naming is still hot in A2, as evidenced by web design company Sagient. Sort of like Sapient (which also offers work that’s “on time and on budget”) but with more sage.

25 Responses to “Parsleyent, Sagient, Rosemarient and Thymient”


  1. With sentences like, “Our experience runs deeply in technology, real estate, automotive, financial services and life sciences.” I certainly wouldn’t want Sagient proof-reading my web site. I mean blog.


  2. From the front page alone, you could cover a whole card if you were playing Business Buzz Word Bingo.


  3. From the front page alone, you could cover a whole card if you were playing Business Buzz Word Bingo.


  4. whoops, I clicked twice. I guess that’s bad.


  5. Mama Mia, that’s a spicy meatball!


  6. * b2b
    * b2c
    * roi

    Bingo!

    Actually, the lingo is left over from the last time Ann Arbor has some VC money running through it, back in the ninties. I haven’t heard B2B since then.


  7. You haven’t been to the IT Zone lately, I take it.


  8. Oh, and the meatball comment was in reference to Sapient, not the first one.


  9. The copy reads like it was pened in the 1990s as well…

    > Solutions that provide your company with
    > genuine ROI.

    That’s reassuring, what with the recent rash of ROI conunterfiting.

    > More and more, databases and the web are being
    > used together. It only makes sense.

    Interesting. What are these “data” “bases” of which you speak?

    > Web interfaces have opened up a world of
    > possibilities for application development.

    Like some day, you might be able to post snide comments about Ann Arbor, using a web interface that will store the snide comments in a database.

    We can only dream.


  10. B2B, yeah, it’s true, I haven’t seen that in a while, but I’m talking about words like “leveraging”, “robust”, “branding”, “tap into” etc. Perfectly normal words that have been run into the ground by people in business settings.


  11. Alan, I was noticing that about the copy too … it’s almost like it’s been generated by a bot. Not quite as bad as run through Babel a few times and then back to English, but close.


  12. The IT Zoners are falling all over themselves about Podcasting, which makes sense considering the outragous amount of time Michiganders spend in their cars.

    Be careful of the IT Zone. They’ll have you sign an NDA, then read you an article straight out of Wired.


  13. I went to that podcasting event! (Actually one of my many part-time jobs is online indie music promotion). Podcasting is pretty interesting.


  14. Let me know if you want to Podcast. It’s easy.

    The current thought on Podcasting is that you can’t skim, gather or search. There’s a death of Podcasting meme out there. A lot of the immediate applications are going to fall flat, but it still beats all NPR, all stations, all the time.

    It’s cool. It’s only one member of the Syndisphere, but there’s a low barrier to entry to create and remix audio. It will be very popular.

    The IT Zone is good for hearing about what’s happening, if you are not really a part of what’s happening.

    Otherwise, it’s also a scary place because people get possessive about their ideas, and are more concerned with regional credibility than acutal development.


  15. Alan, for some reason your link here doesn’t connect me to you. (e-mail me at wendy@toolshed.biz)


  16. Oy!

    Yes. I mistyped it. Try again.


  17. Computers are stupid.


  18. Au contraire.

    Without computers you wouldn’t be able to leverage robust branding, and tap into genuine ROI.

    Make’s me think of this recent Boing Boing post:

    We are truly the finest of all possible restaurants.

    I’m more into networks than computers, anyway.


  19. The current thought on Podcasting is that you can’t skim, gather or search.

    That’s kind of a good thing, though — the rest of the ‘net’s transcendent ability to be skimmed, gathered, and searched fosters a sort of lo-cal grazing; you never really get into anything. Podcasting’s limitations help it fill the in-depth-stuff niche.


  20. also, they are updating the software all the time. I think they will put in some mechanism to ff through segments.


  21. Ben. I’m just relating. I don’t agree.

    I don’t think anyone want’s to hear a speaking diary, but I do think Podcasters will figure out how to make the medium engaging.

    Actually, I think Podcasting is time limited, in that it routes around a problem of the medium, you choose little bits of programming to take with you, because you can’t get IP connectivity on your iPod. What happens when iPod have broadband access?

    (OFWI should not have bought me that last Manhattan), okay, so with Voice Over IP, and six billion people, why record anything at all?

    Why pay for a recording when you can commission live music? Ask an artist to play that song again.

    That’s how they musicians make music in the future. Not by recording, but by broadcasting.


  22. Podcasting is retarded. “Wow, I have a radio on my iPod!” It’s like taping 89X and playing it later on your walkman. Why the fuck would you bother?
    Just like those earbuds are retarded.


  23. agreed about the masturbatory ear buds…I use the iTrip and put it on the radio.


  24. JS, I would also agree that podcasting would be “retarded” if all you could get were shows from commercial radio, however, there are some really interesting short pieces out there that are fun to listen to on occasion.

    I have been downloading a show called “We Sell the Tasty Life” which is Japanese pop, punk, etc. and some of the tunes are actually pretty good and something I wouldn’t have been exposed to in my own particular circle. The show is also only about 20 minutes long, so I stockpile a bunch of those on the iPod and listen in the car if I’m on a drive of any length. Plus, it’s kind of fun to see the different categories that are sprouting up all over the place.


  25. To the latter company’s credit, Sapient is actually a word. Company names like Agilent, Viant, and Sagient took the pattern of names that “sound like a word but really aren’t.”