We all know that incandescent light bulbs haven’t worked out. Costly and inefficient, GE gave up that ghost several years back, and moved their resources and consumer pitches to the land of the LED (light-emitting diode).

The latest announcement is an LED bulb for $50 that guarantees seventeen light years. The problem up until now, in addition to the expense, has been perceptual – the light they shed lacks warmth and cool lighting is not pleasing to the average at home user – accustomed to a warm, incandescent glow.

GE is now betting on the latest LED iteration as a winner. For between $40-$50, GE Energy Smart LED 40-watt bulbs will be on the market by 2011. This bulb offers a 77 percent energy save, will last twenty-five times longer and uses only 9 watts.Continue reading...

As the cornerstone of a new brand identity, can we all agree that Yahoo’s “It’s You” campaign hasn’t exactly turned the world upside down since it was launched last fall, despite the apparent expenditure of much of the $100 million budgeted for it?

Which raises another issue. Yahoo last week filed for a trademark on the “It’s You” expression. The question: Why bother?

It’s not as if this branding campaign has been lighting the world on fire. Yahoo’s continuing problem as a brand nowadays actually stems from its history as one of the original

brands spawned by the internet. During the 1990's, just being an internet brand was brand enough. There was America Online, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo (usually with the “!” back then) and a few grocery-delivery sites. Google hadn’t even really come on strong yet.Continue reading...

China’s reputation for lax intellectual property and technology rights protection is taking another hit, this time in the bullet train category. Central Japan Railway recently announced it would not sell its trains to China due to fears its bullet train technology would be illegally copied there.

Central Japan Railway claims China has already copied Japanese bullet train technology, and has done so in an unsafe way. In a BusinessWeek report, Central Japan Railway spokesman Soushi Hasegawa said, “There’s some uneasiness that China might take our intellectual property... We’re not thinking of marketing our trains in China.” 

China has rejected these accusations.Continue reading...

Of all the new brands spawned by the internet age, WikiLeaks is one of the most fascinating – and most disturbing. Amazon revolutionized book buying, and eBay created the ultimate marketplace. But WikiLeaks is making a huge impact on affairs of state.

Just yesterday, in fact, the US Defense Department said that it couldn’t locate its copy of a video of a July 2007 air strike that killed two Reuters employees in Iraq, according to the Associated Press. Yet this apparently is the very same video that was obtained surreptitiously by WikiLeaks, converted out of its encrypted form by allies and volunteers, and replayed hundreds of times on news reports around the world, then posted on YouTube, where it has been viewed millions of times.

This is exactly the impact that WikiLeaks’ founders wanted to have, they told The New York Times in an interview. “That’s arguably what spy agencies do – high-tech investigative journalism,” said Julian Assange, one of the site’s founders. “It’s time that the media upgraded its capabilities along those lines."Continue reading...

In response to class action lawsuits filed by business owners who allege they've been extorted by Yelp, the site is now making filtered-out reviews visible.

Yelp has also removed the option for companies to push their favorite review to the top of their company’s page. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman posted on his blog that “Lifting the veil on our review filter and doing away with 'Favorite Review' will make it even clearer that displayed reviews on Yelp are completely independent of advertising – or any sort of manipulation."Continue reading...

AOL is selling, or shutting down, Bebo, the networking site it bought in 2008 – for $850 million.

A recent internal AOL memo summed it up: “It is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success. Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space."

When AOL purchased Bebo it was a popular British site, but it never got a grip in the US, entering the fray of social media as it was powerfully on the rise.Continue reading...

Marketing software maker HubSpot has analyzed 9 million Twitter profiles and has come to the conclusion that accounts with a profile picture average about 10 times more followers than those without.

What is the reason? Generally a Twitter profile associated with a default avatar looks amateurish. For many, Twitter is about following experts, not just ordinary people – that’s what Facebook is for.

Media site Dosh Dosh examined the Top Ten Twitterholics based on Followers and found that they built large audiences through already established popularity. Most had followers from being deemed experts and rely on the strength of their reputation or personal brand. Integrating your brand or expertise into your profile is crucial, as is using websites or other platforms to promote your Twitter profile.Continue reading...

Though only the future knows the iPad's contribution to the workplace, the present seems to indicate that Apple's latest offering is an entertainment superstar – or, as one brand hopes, a superhero.

Like many traditional print publishers, Marvel is banking on the iPad as a delivery device for its brand of comic books. Marvel says its "landmark" app will make over 500 of the brand's greatest comic books available for iPad consumption. Marvel's app does more than just substitute an LCD for paper though. The Marvel app takes advantage of the iPad's interactivity and connectivity. Yet, the brand may also be missing a major opportunity. Continue reading...