Mircea Baldean

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.
 

Less eBay on AdSense?

Yahoo, eBay form Web advertising alliance

NEW YORK, May 25 (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc and Web auctioneer eBay on Thursday announced a partnership designed to boost their position against Microsoft Corp. and Web search leader Google Inc. , underscoring recent speculation the two companies could eventually merge.

Under the deal, Yahoo will be the exclusive third-party provider of all graphic ads throughout eBay’s auction site. Yahoo has also chosen EBay’s online payment system PayPal to allow its own customers to pay for Yahoo Web services.

The iPod took portable music to a new frontier and now it’s doing the same for the running shoe.

Apple Computer Inc. pushed its digital music player in that direction yesterday when it announced a kit that helps turn the popular Nano device into a pedometer.

The kit, called iPod + Nike, wirelessly transmits information from some Nike Inc. running shoes to Apple’s iPod Nano device so runners can tell how many calories they’ve burnt, the length of time they’ve been running or how many kilometres they’ve covered during a workout. More.

Taste, listen, read - enjoy! Some select Indigo stores include Starbucks coffee stops. Starbuckization has already started!

The company that sells 4 million coffee drinks daily in the USA is hot to extend its brand beyond the espresso machine to influence films, CDs, and books. More.