OPEN

Personal and corporate reputation management firm:

"Your reputation is everything – Brand Titan combines advanced knowledge of search engine optimization, public relations, and traditional branding to deliver consistent results for clients in need of professional grade online reputation management.

"Comprehensive Internet research methodologies and proprietary technology enable us to monitor, and take action against negative press, harmful blog posts, forum discussion topics involving your name or brand, and other online instances of damaging content."

Interesting discussion of "digital outputs" and how they affect online reputation for academics:

"Being invited, and giving, keynotes is often listed as one of the marks of esteem if you are seeking promotion. The reasons are twofold I believe:

Reputation – it demonstrates that you have gained significant standing in your field to be asked regularly to give a keynote talk at a conference.
Impact – if you are giving the keynote then everyone at the conference hears it, and you can therefore claim a significant impact in your subject.
The important element then is not the keynote itself, but what it signifies. If we start with this basis, then we can think of online equivalents. For example, if I give a talk and then put up a slidecast of that presentation, a certain number of views might equate to impact (how many people would hear a live presentation?). If the presentation is retweeted, linked to, embedded, then this might give an indication of reputation."

"ID fraudsters target Facebook and other social networking sites to harvest information about you. Sophos experts recommend you set the following Facebook privacy options to protect against online identity theft."

2007 Sophos survey shows: "Compiled from a random snapshot of Facebook users, Sophos's research shows that 41% of users, more than two in five, will divulge personal information – such as email address, date of birth and phone number – to a complete stranger, greatly increasing their susceptibility to ID theft."

Intriguing argument in favour of microsites, that says we should keep them alive to make them useful:

"For decades, we've been working with media that because of their nature made advertising transient and, like paper plates, sometimes useful but ultimately disposable. With the web, we can create ads that accumulate viewership over time in a way that pre-YouTube TV spots never could, and yet we are squandering the opportunity. Thinking of microsites as an investment that pays off over time instead of an expense line in a three-months campaign budget could be the first step."

This post includes a lovely video of Steve Bezos talking (presumably for Zappos people after the takeover):

1. Obsess over customers
2. Invent (don't accept either or, come up with something new)
3. Think long term – huge competitive advantage, as most people get pressurized into short term thinking.
4. It's always day one… there's always more to be invented, done etc…)

The official Twitter guide to business use of its microblogging service:

"Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter."

A kind of "sPeak UR Branes" for Facebook. A whole lot of overshare going on…

Mark Ritson fisks the Superbrands approach:

"Imagine a world where the Ordnance Survey is a bigger brand than Disney. Not crazy enough for you? OK, how about the idea that the Royal Albert Hall's brand is twice as powerful as VW in the UK? Or how would you react if I told you that Mercedes Trucks' brand is twice as good as Tiffany? Still not convinced? Would you believe me that Royal Doulton is a more powerful brand in Britain than Tesco?"

Collection of BusinessWeek articles about innovation.

How Bono's private photos ended up available to everyone on the New York geographic network:

"IT security and control firm Sophos is warning Facebook users who are members of geographic networks to check their privacy settings after photos of Bono from U2 and a couple of bikini-clad girls were made available to the entire New York network."

Someone's story of what they did when they found that a photos of them (non-pornographic) had been posted on a porn site:

"There’s a US copyright law called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or DMCA for short, which protects you and I from having our copyrights infringed. If you ever find any of your photos being used without your permission, kinky or otherwise, then following these simple steps should help you get them removed…"

"Can we please have a moment of silence for the power of constraint? Kthx. The issue with recording and sharing in contemporary society is that is far far far too easy to go overboard. This is where we struggle to find balance. Just because you can share every detail doesn't mean you necessarily should. Just because you can record every moment of your day doesn't mean you should. Part of the problem is that the technology doesn't force you to think about your audience. When your mother brings out the photographs of your childhood, she can watch you squirm when you've had enough (usually after the third photo). She may ignore you, but she knows. But what does it mean that we are unable to see – and thus able to ignore – our audience online? When people bitch about folks sharing what they ate for breakfast, they're noting that this kind of sharing of minutia is clearly ignorant of the annoyed audience in preference for the ability to record everything."

"[LEGO] is releasing the almost ridiculously fitting Architecture series, beginning with the Frank Lloyd Wright Collection, six planned sets including the Guggenheim in New York and Fallingwater, the iconic cantilevered waterfall-house outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

Press release about PC monitoring software and the issue of cyberbullying.

A broadside against Josh Bernoff's view that digital advertising is inherently superior to offline:

"The fundamental problem right now is that most digital executions are weaker versions of their counterparts in traditional channels. They rely on intrusive media placement to get noticed, or they offer discounts to incentivize people to buy. Very few of them really engage people. And by “engage,” I mean encourage people to willingly devote time to the content. I willingly give my time to search results because I am actively seeking something of value to me. I do not give my time to pop-ups and similar ad formats because they hinder me from getting to the content I want to see. It is not that digital communication cannot be more effective than traditional media; it is simply that most of it is used as a blatant sales pitch that lacks personal relevance for most of the audience."

"The current system, albeit relatively clunky, could be purchased for as little as $350. Essentially it is made up of a webcam, a battery-powered 3M projector, mirror, phone and colored finger caps. But in 10 years – according to Maes, the period of time when this type of system might be fully developed – it could be one device and as small as a watch. Or indeed maybe even a brain implant."