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16 Mar 2010 23:43

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Biz: Canon wants a .canon top-level domain; this is a stupid idea.

  • Canon is sure an arrogant company. They think, for some reason, that they’re worthy of their own top-level domain, unlike every other company out there. We think this is really stupid, because, well, their top-level domain opens up the possibility of a .cocacola or a .southoftheborder, which means that what’s a fairly simple domain structure becomes unspeakably complex.
  • bad standardThe reason why top-level domains work well as-is, mostly, is because they create an open environment. By getting their own top-level domain, Canon creates a walled garden separate from the rest of the Web.
  • Is it really easier? Canon seems convinced that it’s easier to type in my.canon (or whatever) than it is to type in canon.com. People have been typing canon.com for 15 years; changing it makes it harder. It’s branding gone amok.
  • showing restraint To us, this idea suggests a need to figure out just when the best time would be to pull out the generalized top level domains. Because it appears Canon’s taking a road down a slippery slope with this move.

.canon domains we’d like to see

  • » pachelbels.canon: One of the most well-known pieces of music is Pachelbel’s Canon, and that’s been around way longer than Canon has.
  • » isthis.furry.buffyfanfic.canon: The main definition of “canon” refers to whether something is part of a story’s universe. And you could probably have fun with it, too.
  • » potato.canon: Some jokers will probably come up with clever uses of the TLD, although if they’re like this, they’ll totally be wrong, because “cannon” has two N’s.
  • » myprintersucks.itsmadeby.canon: If Canon really wanted to be bold with this idea, they’d let people buy dissenting domains that criticize both the brand and its products.

06 Aug 2009 00:55

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Biz, Tech: Radio Shack wants you to forget that it sells radios sometimes

Just because you guys completely alienated the hobbyist segment of your customer base doesn’t mean a cute thumb is gonna make us forget it. source

28 Jul 2009 11:02

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Biz: The evolution of two soda company icons, in logo form

On the left: A constantly-changing icon that wins a lot of taste tests. On the right: A stable, consistent brand. (Minus the New Coke thing.) source

24 Jul 2009 21:26

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Biz, Tech: Coke has a big Facebook brand, but it’s not as big as Starbucks

  • 3.5 million number of fans the soft-drink company has managed to curate on Facebook since Pages began; it was long the leading Facebook brand
  • 3.7 million number of fans the coffee-addiction-peddling company has curated on Facebook; Starbucks leapfrogged over Coke using coupons source

20 Jan 2009 16:05

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U.S.: Change has come to Whitehouse.gov

Isn’t it nice to know we have a new government that cares about great Web design? source