Google officially launched brand pages on Google+ today, ending months of waiting. The Web giant's pitch to convince businesses and brands to sign up (and unseat Facebook's dominance as the go-to social destination for businesses):

"Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you'll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello."

Charter branded G+ pages at launch showed the array of business-hosted pages possible:Continue reading...

Get to be a big enough brand and you can go by a single name. Gisele. Brad. Angie. Ellen. Rosie. Jay. Martha. Get to be an even bigger name brand and you can go by a single letter: "O."

As everyone except white males age 40 to 70 now knows, Oprah will leave her show to move to cable. The way the news is being handled one might expect this to happen, like, next month. But the move is still more than a year away, in 2011. That isn't stopping anyone from telling us what this move means. But what if it means nothing? Continue reading...

Am I the only one who thinks that Heidi Klum is honing in on Tyra Banks' territory? Neither supermodel-turned-television-mogul refuses to cease taking over the world. Rather than focus on both and have my head explode, we'll concentrate on the former.

Despite a 2007 lawsuit against her for a collection that looked eerily similar to a Van Cleef & Arpels design, Klum refused to let it get her down. She's joined up with Modern Vintage and Majestic Mills co-founders Rick and Brian Cytrynbaum to create a “pervasive lifestyle collection” set to launch next fall, and will begin with 48 styles of shoes (from stilettos to boots) before moving on to workout clothes, dresses, and bathing suits. That is a whole lot of footwear.Continue reading...