Corporate Eye

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Archives for November 2011

New York Times Sues Huffington Post Over Brand Name

On October 24, 2011, a former New York Times employee and manager of that company’s 3-year old “Motherlode” blog launched a new blog for her new employer, AOL’s The Huffington Post, called “Parentlode.”

That’s the story that a lawsuit filed by the New York Times on November 4, 2011 tells of Lisa Belkin who — 1-month into her new gig with The Huffington Post — launched the new blog with a name that is very similar to the blog she managed for the New York Times.

Belkin acknowledge the similarity in her first blog post published on Parentlode. As Jonathan Stempel of Reuters reports:

“Her first Parentlode blog entry referred to the Motherlode blog and said the name change in part reflected reader concerns that Motherlode does not fit ‘in an era when fathers are every bit the parent.’ She also said the old name does not fit a blog that ‘regularly champions equality, and new paradigms.’“

The New York Times claims in its lawsuit that Parentlode was launched with a name so close to its existing Motherlode blog that it “clearly intended” to confuse people.

Coincidence? It’s highly doubtful. You can follow the links to see the trademark filings from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for Motherlode (filed on October 24, 2011, the day Parentlode launched, but first used in commerce on October 1, 2008) and Parentlode (filed on October 14, 2011).

What do you think? Is the New York Times wasting its time? Should AOL fight the lawsuit or cut their losses (after all, the Parentlode blog has only been live for a couple of weeks)? One thing is for certain, AOL, The Huffington Post, the New York Times, Motherlode, and Parentlode are all getting some publicity from this lawsuit.

Leave a comment and share your thoughts. Who should be the victor in the trademark dispute between Motherlode and Parentlode and which brand should prevail?

Image: stock.xchng

The Eurozone, Cricket, and CSR

Sometimes you wonder just how committed people engaged in CSR are about changing business and society for the better.  For example, when seriously challenging stories surface about business and governance the news agenda seems to have a blind spot about their effect on the CSR agenda.  Instead the focus is on money alone, not finance or any other broader considerations.

As two examples, I hold up the the “spot fixing” convictions in cricket and Greece’s abortive referendum on the latest Euro bailout deal.  Both of these should cause CSR businessmen and proponents to think very carefully about what they believe in, and here’s why.

[Read more…] about The Eurozone, Cricket, and CSR

Google+ Pages Open for Brands and Businesses

Just a few months ago, Google kicked brands, businesses, bands, and other non-personal profiles off of Google+ with a message that they’d be welcome back soon with something specifically created for them. That day has come.

Today, Google announced the worldwide launch of Google+ Pages giving brands, businesses, and the like a place on the fast growing social site. In a blog post on the Official Google Blog, Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering, stated that any business or organization, “will soon be able to join the community,” by creating their own Google+ Pages.

A number of bands, entertainers, nonprofit organizations, brands, and businesses have already created Google+ Pages, including Toyota, Pepsi, H&M, Save the Children UK, and more.

Not only can businesses and brands use Google+ to connect with existing and potential consumers around the world, but they can also use Google+ features like circles to segment groups of customers for targeted communications, hangouts to speak directly with their followers, and sparks to monitor conversations.

Google+ Pages will be integrated with other Google products such as AdWords for campaign tracking, and a verification process will be put in place for well-known brands to ensure people find the verified brand or business page rather than an imposter.

To coincide with the launch of Google+ Pages, Google also announced the launch of Direct Connect, which will enable people to search Google for a brand name preceded by a + sign (for example, +Toyota) and get an instant connection to that brand’s Google+ Page where they can instantly add the brand to their own account and go directly to the brand’s Google+ Page. Check out the video below to see how it will work.


Google continually teases both consumers and investors about more features coming for Google+, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s next. Google’s goal is clearly not to have the best stand-alone social networking site with Google+ but to integrate its varied products so closely that people become completely dependent on them — like a one-stop-shopping solution to more things than we can probably imagine.

What do you think of Google+ Pages and Direct Connect?

Google Changes Algorithm Making It Even More Important for Brands to Become Publishers

The evolution of social media and content marketing (during their to-date short lifespans) has been telling companies and brands something very specific for years:

Brands need to get social and think like publishers, not marketers.

At first, the reason for this shift in strategy came from the need to interact and engage with people by creating and sharing valuable, useful, and meaningful information. Those needs still hold true, but with a new Google algorithm change, there is another piece that has jumped up to the top of the priority list.

In Google’s new algorithm change, websites with fresh content will be ranked higher than sites with dated content. This has long been a part of the Google algorithm, but now, it’s taking on much greater significance and will affect 35% of Google search results.

What does this mean for brands?

Well, anyone who said blogs are dead over the last few years was very, very wrong. From fresh blog posts to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates, brands need to spend time creating amazing, shareworthy content.

It’s not surprising that this day arrived. Paying for links can only get a company so far. Quality content that’s published frequently has long been the best strategy for building long-term, sustainable, organic growth. However, for many companies and brands, it took the mighty Google to make them realize short-term tactics only work in the short-term.

Remember, quality should always be your top priority when it comes to content marketing. By updating your content frequently, Google will reward you, too.

Time to get writing!

Image: Flickr

Find Your Way

Thyssen-Krupp invite student visitors to their corporate careers section to ‘find their way’ by completing a series of questions; depending on the answers, a different set of jobs, events and further information is presented – sorted by relevance.

We like this because:

This is very useful for the visitor, helping them get straight to sections and information likely to be most appropriate to them depending on the stage of their studies, what they have been studying, and what they are looking for.

Do note the ‘sorted by relevance’ feature.

See Thyssen-Krupp career pages.