the webthinking blog

I find this really interesting. Have a look at the world’s most valuable 100 brands according to an annual survey by BusinessWeek and Interbrand. Note that heavyweights as Visa, Wal-Mart, Mars and CNN were not taken into account. Fiftly per cent of the brands come from the U.S. while the other half is from non-U.S. companies, including several from countries with much smaller economies. Switzerland, for example, has five brands on the global list (Nescafé, Novartis, UBS, Nestlé and Rolex). Canada has a few stong brands - RBC, Toronto Dominion, Petro-Canada - but none of them made it to Top 100, reason being the tendency to think locally/nationally versus globally.
 

Yahoo and Sony BMG announced they are offering DRM free MP3 music files for two bucks. It’s about time we see a shift to digital downloads from other big players. Apparently Sony decided to take part into the project in order to improve it’s image after the copy-protected CD scandal.

On the current site, Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go there’s a note stating the iPod is not compatible with this service. Well, hello, Apple has about 70 per cent of the market share for ”to go” players. Good luck!

I’m using Gmail as a back-up for my primary email service. It’s interesting to see others think the same and they love it too. :) What I really dig though is the Gmail Mobile used in conjunction with my BlackBerry. It’s just easier to keep it in synch (read/sent messages) rather than forwarding everything through the BlackBerry web client.

Opera Mini works just fine, quick loading and rendering (see attached picture). Plus, I get no spam as Gmail already does a good job in keeping the mailbox clean.

How do I know that I’ve got (g)mail? Easy enough, I set-up a text-based notification to my wireless email address wirelessnumber (at) pcs.rogers.com. I wasn’t able to find out if Gmail Mobile works for the hosted email service.

CBC definitely keeps an eye on what’s happening in the podosphere. As new trends emerge they know that sooner or later podcasting will be large adopted. Their podcast section contains mainly downloadable radio shows.

PodShow’s Michael Butler appears on a CBC program called “End of Radio“.

Enjoy the video!