Apple – Most Valuable Brand in the World, But Loses its Retail Guru to J.C. Penny

By Peter Vogel on June 20, 2011

Google was the most valuable brand name in the world for 4 years, and now Apple has finally surpassed Google as the most valuable brand. Rounding out the top 10 are very familar names:

1. Apple
2. Google
3. IBM
4. McDonald’s
5. Microsoft
6. Coca-Cola
7. AT&T
8. Marlboro…

Is Internet Privacy Possible?

By Peter Vogel on June 13, 2011

A new lawsuit against Google for Internet location tracking highlights my recent eCommerce Times column that Internet privacy may not be possible. The new class action lawsuit brought by Jon Pessano and others asserts that Google uses its location marketing database to generate billions of dollars in location based…

By Peter Vogel on June 7, 2011

Steve Jobs’ predicts that Apple’s freeiCloud will allow everyone store all of their music, video, photos, and documents on the Web, which is no surprise in today’s hot cloud world. But many alarms went off around the world with the FBI’s announcement that the hacker group LulzSec breached…

By Peter Vogel on June 1, 2011

Two recent Pennsylvania State Court rulings only make things more confusing as Social Media privacy disputes become more prevalent.

Bucks County Common Pleas Court Judge Albert J. Cepparulo ruled in Piccolo v. Paterson denied a motion to require the Piccolo to accept Patterson as a Facebook friend. In this…

By Peter Vogel on May 28, 2011

Senator Ron Wyden blocked a change to the Copyright Act which would have allowed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to order search engines and ISP to stop sending traffic of websites accused of infringing copyrights. The proposed law is called “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft…

By Peter Vogel on May 22, 2011

With 2010 revenue of about $240 million LinkedIn’s IPO $9.1 billion foreshadows an unbelievable value for Facebook when it has an IPO. Particularly since Facebook had 2010 revenue of about $2 billion, and that Hitwise most recent report of the Top Ten Social Networking Sites listed Facebook #1 with a…

By Peter Vogel on May 17, 2011

Current US Congressional debate will impact the future of the Internet with Net Neutrality opponents claiming that the FCC has overstepped its bounds of regulation and should rely on the antitrust laws. My recent eCommerce Times column entitled “Net Neutrality in a Nutshell” helps put the debate in perspective:

What…

By Peter Vogel on May 10, 2011

VOIP is likely headed in a new direction now that Microsoft agreed to pay $8.5 billion for Skype. It was reported that Facebook and Google’s offers were in the $3 to 4 billion range, while at the same time Skype was still considering an IPO later this year. As…

By Peter Vogel on May 4, 2011

By the fall of 2011 BlackBerry mobile devices will use Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine (with Bing maps) in direct competition with Google and to try to capture location based marketing opportunities. This should not be a surprise to anyone since Microsoft’s reported a 4% decline in sales…

By Peter Vogel on April 28, 2011

Steve Jobs admitted that Apple made mistakes in how it handled location data on the iPad and iPhone, but claims the data was not used to keep tabs on the whereabouts of customer. In the meantime Google announced that it used Android phone location data anonymously and with user consent…