iPhone sales are trending well in the September quarter and Apple has app developers and its rivals to thank for it. This according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who says those two groups are doing a great deal to reinforce Apple’s brand.
Google began using billboard advertising for the first time earlier this month, though it may not have needed to. Because according to Millward Brown Optimor, the Google brand is the most well known and valuable brand in the world.
The Palm Pre has proven a far better curative for the handset maker than for Sprint, its exclusive carrier. Certainly, the Pre doesn’t appear to have done much to reverse Sprint’s decline. Reporting second-quarter earnings this morning, Sprint posted a loss of $384 million, or 13 cents a share as customers defected to rival carriers.
The consolidation of the prepaid cellphone market has begun in earnest. This morning, Sprint Nextel said it will acquire Virgin Mobile USA in a $483 million stock deal that will give the company a clear lead in the prepaid arena, where low prices are becoming ever more popular with consumers beaten into submission by the continuing recession.
Microsoft COO Kevin Turner must be so disappointed. Remarking on the company’s “PC Hunter” ad campaign last week, Turner said he’d been ebullient when attorneys for Apple called to complain. But now the company has quietly modified the ad in question to address Apple’s complaints.
Well, this is unexpected. Amazon has agreed to purchase online shoe retailer Zappos.com in a deal valued at about $850 million. Under its terms, the retailer will acquire all outstanding Zappos shares in exchange for roughly 10 million shares of Amazon common stock, valued at about $807 million, and some $40 million in cash and restricted stock. If the shoe fits, right?
“Sponsors of Tomorrow” is the new “Intel Inside.” The chipmaker is gearing up to launch a massive new advertising campaign, and that slogan is to be its anchor. Its purpose: to make us all more familiar with the Intel brand–as if it wasn’t ubiquitous enough already.
Now that Sony’s old guard has taken what was once a strong electronics and gaming brand and run it into the ground, the company’s new guard is circling back to resurrect it. This morning the company announced a management overhaul that will see CEO Howard Stringer succeed Ryoji Chubachi as president and assume responsibility for Sony’s key electronics division.
“What has become of the Sony known for its technology?” Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister and former Sony employee Akira Amari asked in October of 2006. “I hope it will solve its problems soon to quickly recover its brand image reputed for technological prowess.” If Amari can recall when that was Sony’s image, he has a good memory. Because Sony lost its dominant position in consumer electronics to rivals in Japan, South Korea and the U.S. long ago and has yet to regain it. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the the company’s videogame division.
How do you persuade TV viewers to watch advertisements when the DVR has accustomed them to skip through them? That’s the dilemma facing television and cable networks today, one that’s so far defied a solution. But perhaps not for much longer.
No big surprise here. Google is the single most powerful brand in the world. Though it did little promotional advertising, the company for the second consecutive year claimed the top spot on Millward Brown Optimor’s annual BrandZ™ Ranking–a list of the top 100 most powerful global brands.
According to the market research firm’s assessment of [...]
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
