News Byte

Lowe’s Hardware Remodels Offerings by Acquiring Online Retailer

In order to expand its offerings online, Lowe’s has acquired ATG Stores, a Kirkland, Wash.-based home improvement retailer that operates more than 500 Web sites, ranging from LightingUniverse.com to HandandPowerToolShop.com. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Lowe’s said the 12-year-old company will continue to maintain separate branding and independent merchandising.

Tweeting Without Fear

Who would have thought typing such short messages could be so tricky?

Branded by Google+ Pages (Comic)

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.
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Big Brands Like Facebook, But They Don’t Like to Pay

Everybody wants to be liked. The question for Facebook Inc. is how much advertisers are willing to pay for the opportunity.

Facebook’s Brand of Loyalty

Companies have spent the past few years trying to amass Facebook fans for their products and services. Now they’re trying to figure out how to squeeze value out of them.

AOL Moves the Furniture Around Some More, With Brod to Patch

Here’s an internal memo just sent out by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, in which he buries the lede by noting the business partner of content czar Arianna Huffington, Jon Brod, will move to work on its local Patch effort and Mapquest mapping unit full time. There’s also some branding streamlining, which is akin to moving the couch over near the window where it looks better.
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HP Oldsmobiles the Palm Brand

Hewlett-Packard bought Palm for its technology and talent, not for its brand. So it’s hardly surprising that the Palm logo and name were nowhere to be found at HP’s big webOS event Wednesday. Not in the signage. Not in the videos or slides included in the onstage presentation and not on any of the new hardware on display. The TouchPad, Veer and Pre3 all sport silver HP logos and “HP” as a prefix, not Palm.

Myte, Gyst and Veer: Who’s Doing Palm’s Branding, Chaucer?

Companies often file trademarks on brands that they never end up using, so this trio of USPTO filings, made by Hewlett-Packard on December 10 isn’t exactly remarkable. But it is interesting in that the marks for which the company has applied–“Gyst,” “Myte,” and “Veer”–sound suspiciously like the names of Palm products.

Chinese Firm Meets Global Branding

Chinese companies have for years puzzled over how to break out of low-profit manufacturing for Western companies and expand into the U.S. market with their own brands. Jack Yang thinks he has the answer.

Exclusive: Facebook Will Announce 500 Million Users Next Week With "Facebook Stories"

Facebook expects to announce its 500-millionth user next week, and will mark the occasion with a new consumer marketing initiative called “Facebook Stories.” Last week, BoomTown got wind of the effort–which will center on a variety of life stories from users about the impact of the social networking site on their lives–and asked Facebook about it. The company confirmed its impending launch and put Randi Zuckerberg on the horn to tell me the story behind “Stories.”

Windows Mobile 6.5: Instant Classic