branding

Caffeine behemoth Starbucks on Tuesday finally unveiled its revamped Web hub, a landing page that's only accessible from its in-store Wi-Fi networks in the U.S. Teaming with the likes of Yahoo (the main technology partner), The Wall Street Journal, GOOD, The New York Times, iTunes, LinkedIn, and Foursquare, Starbucks has packed the new site full of news both local and mainstream (including content that would normally be behind paywalls), free music download promos, local information like weather and bike trails, and movie trailers.

It's an interesting concept. Starbucks calls this the Starbucks Digital Network, or as senior … Read more

Opinions were mixed as to whether the film "The Social Network," which topped the U.S. box office charts for the second week in a row, would have a positive or negative effect on audiences' perceptions of Facebook as a company. On one hand, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is depicted as a harsh megalomaniac; on the other, the well-received movie is a sexy, stylized look at Silicon Valley that certainly makes hacking and engineering seem a bit more titillating than it is in real life.

YouGov, a market research firm that's been monitoring Facebook's "brand perception" for some time now … Read more

Come 2012, confused camera customers might be able to point their browsers to a Web address that looks very different from what's available today: support.canon.

That's because the organization in charge of such names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is planning on a dramatic rewriting of the rules for Web addresses that could demote .com's importance.

Today there are just a few of what are called generic top-level domains--.com, .net, .org, .biz, and .edu, for example. But ICANN wants to open the door to, potentially, hundreds or thousands more of these GTLDs.

That's a big change, especially for those who have a brand to protect on the Internet and were taken by surprise by the virtual land grab that took place with .com addresses in the 1990s. Here's a look at what GTLDs mean now and in the future.

What is a generic top-level domain, and how do I get one? In an Internet address, the top-level domains is what comes after the last period in the main server address. There are two broad types: the generic top-level domains such as .com and country code top-level domains such as .jp for Japan or .de for Germany. With ICANN's expansion, though, the term "generic" is something of a misnomer: it could include not only something like .auto or .hotel, but also branded domains such as .ibm or .safeway. … Read more

You never really know what will get social-media marketing chatter going. Film directors getting kicked off planes, for one, or that Old Spice Man sensation. This week, it was when retailer The Gap--which has lately been getting loads of positive digital press for its use of Groupon and Foursquare--unveiled a complete revamp of its iconic logo, and everybody freaked out. More specifically, they seemed to think it was the worst idea since New Coke.

"Gap" became a trending topic on Twitter, as design- and branding-savvy Twitterers (as well as those who just like to voice an opinion … Read more

Yahoo and Electus, the multiplatform content studio headed by former NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman, debuted its first original, branded entertainment programming last night with "Ready, Set, Dance!"

The site, which is now live on Yahoo Music and sponsored by State Farm, merges the candid-camera phenomenon with reality television and "aims to tap into the pop culture interest in television dance shows and dance videos on the Web...."

The Yahoo site is relatively spare right now, with only one episode, titled "Magic Sparkle Chunk and Frisky Ris."

Reads the description of the show: "… Read more

Cybercriminals are cranking out fake Web sites branded as eBay, banks, and other financial companies to the tune of tens of thousands every week, according to new research.

During a three-month study of its global malware database, Panda Security found on average 57,000 new Web sites created each week with the aim of exploiting a brand name in order to steal information that can be used to drain peoples' bank accounts.

About 80 percent of those were phishing sites designed to trick people into entering their login credentials or other … Read more

Steve Jobs in a turtleneck and shorts?

What a great bit of history this is, and a nice weekend diversion. In the video embedded below, the Apple CEO introduces the company's 1997 Think Different campaign. A key quote: "[Our new ad campaign] honors those people who have changed the world. Some of them are living, some of them are not. But the ones that aren't--you know that if they ever used a computer, it would have been a Mac."

And another: "This is a very complicated world. This is a very noisy world, and we'… Read more

HTC Desire owners on Vodafone's U.K. network received an over-the-air update early Tuesday that came with some unexpected features.

No, it wasn't Android 2.2, code-named Froyo, which brings with it considerable speed updates, home screen enhancements, and tweaks that make it easier to update and manage installed applications. Instead, it was a handful of Vodafone-branded applications, a new Vodafone-branded restart animation, and changes to the user's home screen applications and Web bookmarks.

Angry users have hopped on Vodafone's forums to voice their disapproval. Many are irate over the fact that these apps, which include … Read more

It was only a matter of time, but three months after acquiring Web-based photo editor Picnik, Google has gotten around to integrating the service into Picasa Web Albums.

Now, if a Picasa Web Albums user wants to make a quick edit to a photo, they can do so without leaving the photo page. Previously a user would have needed the software version of Picasa installed, or to use an external editor (such as Picnik)--both of which made for a disjointed experience.

While a seemingly minor move, it's the first step by Google to integrate the Picnik editor into … Read more