There is a bit of hubub about a recent announcement on Google’s blog regarding trademarks.

After reading the post, my question is this: is the title of the post:

Do You “Google?”

a play on Yahoo’s long time marketing slogan:

Do You Yahoo?

If so, then it is clearly cocky and arrogant.

If not, then Google just looks silly by running against the same popular grain that has made them so big while inadvertently tramping on Yahoo’s intellectual property.

Which is it?

Before you mistake this for a fit of self-promotion, I’ll preface by saying that I began reading Wired Magazine shortly after its inception way back in 1992. During the last 13 years, I have submitted query letters, letters to the editor, jargon, comments, and yes, a job application! Never heard a thing from them.

Imagine my surprise when I got an email out of the blue from someone at Wired asking if they could excerpt a blog post. My first thought was: cruel hoax. But it is true, my little trifle about Twitter which Om Malik was kind enough to include on gigaom has actually made it to print.

If I had any doubts about the impact of blogging, they are a faint memory.

Of course, as fate would have it, my wife was quoted in Time Magazine last week, go figure.

Tags: wired, wiredmag, twitter, evanwilliams, gigaom, narendra

Recently, I have found myself wanting to share reviews of different things like movies, books, restaurants here on No Soap but I realized that I need a consistent ratings system and one that would apply accross categories. Obviously there are lots of ways that people have devised scales but under my jurisdiction here his how I do it!

4 STARS – a classic that requires multiple viewings (etc.) to merit such a rating.

3 STARS – good to great. Something very enjoyable that stays with you and you would happily repeat. It may have some minor flaws.

2 STARS – entertainment, or a way to pass the time. It could be outstandingly bad but have some odd redeeming quality. You wouldn’t necessarily repeat the experience.

1 STAR – not worth your time.

That’s it. I felt that any more granularity (e.g. out of 10) would be hard for me to keep straight. There is one other RULE. If you have any doubt about which category something belongs, you must choose the lower one.

The subject is meant to be dramatic and rhetorical. Have a look at the 5 year graph of rank from Alexa (imperfect, of course), but certainly not indicative of the clout one might expect from such an immense brand.

More shocking is the apparent lack of relevancy of time.com to Google (and other search engines). My evidence is purely anecdotal, but pretty eye-opening. Time publishes a new magazine each week that hits newstands on Mondays. The online version is available around midnight EST. This week Time put out a piece called “The Next YouTubes” which featured several companies including zillow.com, farecast.com, and yelp.com along with a sidebar touting 37signals. The last company listed (three cheers!) was 30 Boxes. Now, in the PR world, a “hit” in Time magazine should be considered a crowning jewel.

We are certainly honored and undoubtedly building some brand awareness among an older demographic, but the impact, however, is relatively contained in scope.
Why? It seems that Google simply doesn’t index Time magazine with any frequency. One would imagine that Time would be quickly included in Google News and then echo out from there, but 48 hours 5 days later, searching Google news for Yelp, Zillow, et. al. won’t lead you to the Time article.

So is this a shortcoming of Google News or does Google not deem Time relevant? I’d love to hear from some new media marketing experts like Jeremey Pepper or Steve Rubel!

Tags: 30boxes, time, timemagazine, google, googlenews, youtube, zillow, farecast, yelp, 37signals, steverubel, micropersuasion

We got it into our head to cruise into Naples to grab some pizza before heading down to the hillside town of Amalfi down the coast. Disregarding the advice of friends and family and the explicit words of the Lonely Planet guide, “forget driving in town unless you have a death wish,” we took our chances.

I took the wheel at the rental car agency in Naples assuming that my morning crucible that included navigating my way across Milan at rush hour in order to make the flight to Naples was more than enough to handle a surgical strike.

We immediately got on the highway going the wrong direction which led us to a circuitous route that meant we would traverse most of Napoli on the urban streets.

I am not sure that I can state this emphatically enough. Driving in Naples is pure insanity. By comparison: left turns in LA, a joke; Manhattan, a fun ride; Paris, a whirl. When the car that was behind me as I approached a roundabout skidded out to my left and my mind confirmed that the three scooters that just passed in front of me were headed the wrong way around the roundabout, I realized that I was in over my head.

Survival was akin to playing a fully attentive and intense video game. There was so much going on in the periphery: scooters, dogs, pedestrians all behaving uncharacteristically that I eventually decided to abandon fear and opt for the “when in Rome” (no pun intended) strategy figuring that aggressive behavior seemed to be rewarded.

The crowning moment was traversing a major square near the train station that amounted to a glorified U-turn only I missed the appropriate lane to turn right before stopping at the one light that people apparently paid attention to. I glanced right determined to make a flagrant cut across a few lanes and a curb if need be. My stomach sank as a city bus sidled up on my right. Damn! Craning my head up above and to my right, my eyes met those of the Neopolitan bus driver. He seemed to sense my angst as he flashed a wry grin and proceeded to give me, wait for it…a wag of the finger!

On some level, the wag made me feel accepted by this grimy, gritty urban jungle. He pushed forward and I made my absurdly illegal maneuver because, quite frankly, I could (and I can’t imagine that traffic violations are a priority).

We located the pizza place (Da Michele on a side street off Corso Umberto), double parked (f* it), and had some pizza that was hella tasty. But more importantly, very satisfying.

You want to drive in Naples? Don’t. Anyone out there looking for a good idea for a video game? “Urban Challenge” — a full scale driving game in the world’s biggest cities. I can see it now, “I am going Naples, and you know what, I am going to do it UK Style, on the left, baby!”

Tags: italy, naples, pizza