Once a company with a reputation for being first in innovation – the Trinitron color television in the 1960s, for example – Sony is now widely seen as a technology has-been. The company has two basic problems: the Sony brand is being out-maneuvered in virtually every product category, and its products are generally not up to the standards of its halcyon days.

Samsung and Vizio in televisions, Nintendo in video games, Dell, HP, and Apple in laptops, and Amazon's Kindle in e-book readers – all of these brands are formidable competitors that are winning in Sony product categories.

That's why Sony is ready to "reinvent its marketing," says the company's senior executives. "We cannot just rely on the brand to sell products."Continue reading...

Apparently more people are interested in military combat and espionage than jacking cars and shooting mobsters. Activision announced that its “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” video game set an opening-day sales record on Tuesday, moving 4.7 million units and trouncing the previous mark by Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto IV,” which sold a mere 3.7 million copies in April 2008.

Cnet’s Daniel Terdiman begrudging applauds the new record while assuming that it’ll be broken by the next hot game – possibly Super Mario Brothers Wii, which goes on sale Sunday – but we see a success story for a brand that was founded before many of today’s gamers could properly hold a joystick.Continue reading...

After Maclaren recalled a million of its strollers, even the New York Times apparently couldn't resist getting in on the schadenfreude reserved for brand perceived as a favorite of  "yuppie" parents:

"In Park Slope, the Brooklyn neighborhood that probably has the highest stroller-per-capita ratio in New York City, baby buggies are known to create traffic jams on the picturesque sidewalks, often turning cramped cafes into veritable obstacle courses. And behind each of Park Slope’s strollers, the stereotype goes, is a neurotic parent, prone to worry."

The voluntary recall, initiated for "fingertip amputation and laceration hazard to the child," seems to be rolling forward without a glitch, though an early flood of traffic took down the company's recall site. A spokesperson called this unexpected, which demonstrates Maclaren maybe doesn't understand its demographic. But anyway, the recall is for the United States only, which... uh oh:

"Maclaren said it would not do the same in the UK because there was less concern in this country where Trading Standards recorded just one case."Continue reading...

Yahoo is learning, the hard way, that marriages of convenience are often more difficult than they first appear. Earlier this month the company made a telling announcement: its global “It’s You” campaign would skip China completely.

Why? Because Yahoo China isn’t run by Yahoo. It’s run by the Chinese Alibaba Group (AG), a deal Yahoo struck to get into the Chinese market by giving Alibaba full control over Yahoo China, in exchange for a $1 billion, 39% investment in AG.

So Yahoo has no real control over its brand in China, and this is proving dangerous. The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center put Yahoo on its list of sites featuring “vulgar content,” blaming a user-generated section of the site.Continue reading...

The future is now! And by Verizon’s measure, the future is an industrial wasteland where AT&T service fails you and the iPhone is a useless vanity device.

Debuting last night, the newest ad from the wireless provider packs a punch. Verizon continues their negative campaign against the iPhone and AT&T, calling the iPhone a “semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity,” and features a compacter crushing crystal encrusted Apple devices. Ouch.

In between shots of boxers, robots and a bustling factory, Verizon boasts that the Droid is a smartphone that “does.” The aggressively masculine ad practically grows chest hair.Continue reading...

For at least 25 years, the New York Public Library has used its current logo, a detailed silhouette of a lion. Now, the mark has been updated to be "digital-friendly," reports The New York Times.

The library's venerable lion logo, representative of the famed marble lions "Fortitude" and "Patience" which sit outside the massive building, just couldn't stand up to digital shrinkage.Continue reading...

Halloween is over, which means that shops are already dusting off and putting out their holiday decorations. It always feels a little depressing, don't you think? The new year is fast approaching!

As you read here earlier this week, eBay will briefly go brick-and-mortar for the holiday shopping season, opening temporary boutiques in 12 cities across the country. The flagship, and first to open, will be a 5,500-square-foot pop-up in the heart of Manhattan, located at 3 West 57th Street.Continue reading...

It's pretty clear that people care more about their appearance than ever before. All sorts of companies are making bank in an attempt to help.

The purse-portable Nintendo DS recently introduced a new fashion-based game called Style Savvy that even had Rachel Zoe's fingers moving at its launch party in LA. The game allows players to take on the role of a clothing boutique owner, managing everything from customer questions to budget and inventory.Continue reading...