What’s in a brand name? Depends how you look at it …

Microsoft has been spectacularly successful at claiming simple words that aught not be trade marked. Windows, Office, Project, Exchange, Outlook, Entourage, Word, Access, Excel and Money come to mind. But they’ve been equally unfortunate at making up others like WinCE for Windows Compact Edition (officially Windows Embedded Compact) for hand held computers — it didn’t work well and, for many users, lived up to its initials.

Perhaps worst of all trade marks was Zune, Microsoft’s failed competitor to Apple’s iPod, when seen from the other side of the glass, assisted by a graphic hinting at the sphincter, you might understand why the product got such a bum deal … especially when one of the few poop pop colours it came in was brown!

UPDATE 1/11/2011: Am I the only one wondering what Verizon was thinking when they introduced their 4G wireless service with the letters LTE? It stands for Long Term Evolution, but most will associate it with “lite” as in a light weight version. Really? Well … okay, by all accounts it’s not quiet up to the 4G spec anyway.

The inside joke to the “I like [it]” status updates …

Feeling left out by the women’s “I like [it]” campaign in support of breast cancer? Where [it] is their [purse] and takes the form of status updates “I like it in the kitchen”, “I like it on the table” etc. The one I most enjoyed was “I like it wherever I can find it”.

Males are supposedly left out in the dark by this viral campaign in support of breast cancer. This inside joke must tickle something pink in women, but I can’t understand how it benefits the cause by keeping half the population in the dark.