Modern Idea

You can’t fault them, really. Nearly every large company is paying “Web 2.0 consultants” to develop a strategy to profit off the captive audiences found on Facebook and other lesser social networking sites. Thus far, this has consisted of transparent attempts to persuade people to add commercials to their profile pages. A successful widget strategy must keep in mind that there are 27,977 Facebook applications as of the time of this writing. Guess how many of the top 100 applications are made by traditional product or service companies? Just one—two if you count Hot or Not as a traditional company. Do you?

A successful widget strategy must either provide value or entertain its users—or it will go nowhere. Product marketers and brand managers must put as much effort into one of these two areas as they do their self-serving interests such as determining how to increase the brand impact. (more…)

Last week Google made a subtle change that may signal a big shift in their branding. The change was to a simple 16 pixel-wide icon that appears in the address bar.

Can Google Own the Letter “g”? Are they trying to? According to Search Engine Land, the change is meant to represent a “simple, playful and unique brand.” Google wouldn’t admit they are set on owning a single letter, even if that is exactly what they are attempting to do. So let’s look into what it would take for them to do so. (more…)