Digital Media

This won't come as a surprise to, well, anyone who has spent considerable time on the Web, but a new study found that people act much differently online than offline.

According to eMarketer, which published the report on Monday, "cyberdisinhibition" has caused many Web users to behave much differently online than they would in a typical offline setting. In fact, the market-research firm, which cites findings from Euro RSCG Worldwide, says 43 percent of U.S.-based Web users feel less inhibited online. It also found that "the effect is most prominent among females and users ages 25 to 54."

Of course, being less inhibited online can lead to both positive and negative behaviors. The research firm found that the Web helps 55.6 percent of men and 51.4 percent of women feel more "able to to meet new people." Users are also using the Web to "be empowered to do something they wanted to." The study found that 33.9 percent of male respondents and 29.2 percent of female respondents do things on the Web that they might not otherwise feel able to do offline.

That said, Web users are also more likely to take a company or brand to task online than they would in person. The study found that 24.4 percent of male respondents have "lashed out" at companies on the Internet. Women did it a little less with about 15.8 percent of respondents saying that they had lashed out.

eMarketer's report also highlighted an interesting change in the way people prefer to communicate. A whopping 48.7 percent of respondents said they find electronic communication far more convenient than communicating with others in a face-to-face setting.

From a social perspective, 57.6 percent of respondents said they disagree with the assertion that "online socializing is for sad, antisocial types." Phew. That's how I communicate these days.

Some looks at the new AOL branding.

(Credit: AOL)

It's the media equivalent of moving out of your parents' house, heading to the nearest tattoo and piercing parlor, and yelling FREEEEEEDOM!: AOL has unveiled the "new brand identity" for its post-Time Warner era, slated to begin December 10 when it begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange as a separate company. And there's nary a blue triangle in sight. Instead, there's a plain new text logo presented with various backdrops, from cartoon scribbles to a rock-star hand symbol to a totally adorable goldfish.

The company is currently offering just a preview, and says in a release that a full unveil will come on the spin-off date. Yay, secrets! I love secrets! But we, of course, have many hints: like the fact that CEO Tim Armstrong, who joined the company in March after a long stint as a high-profile Google sales executive, keeps talking up AOL's future as a powerhouse in digital content and publishing. The company's array of niche blogs, which were hatched when AOL purchased Weblogs way back in 2005, are now its centerpiece.

So the new mood? "It's one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal," the release explained. Ooh, sexy!

The release also included a soundbite from Karl Heiselman, CEO of Wolff Olins, which AOL enlisted to help with the transformation: "AOL is a 21st century media company, with an ambitious vision for the future and new focus on creativity and expression, this required the new brand identity to be open and generous, to invite conversation and collaboration, and to feel credible, but also aspirational."

Of course, it's not all sunny: The company is on the verge of significant layoffs, as well as the possible chucking of non-"content" properties like ICQ and MapQuest, as the spinoff date grows closer.

Whatever. Isn't that goldfish cute?

For Madison Avenue, Facebook just got a little less free.

Last week, the massive social network announced that brands, advertisers, and marketers that want to run contests or sweepstakes on its platform have to go through an approval process first.

Getting that approval could be a new revenue stream for Facebook: according to multiple sources in the marketing industry, they're being told that running a promotion in a Facebook application or "fan page" requires buying ad space too.

It's pricey. The minimum ad buy is $10,000 for 30 days, using Facebook's self-service advertising system, according to documents seen by CNET, or $30,000 for 30 days of Facebook home page ads. Priority in the approval process will be scaled, based on how much advertising space has been purchased. It's a move that one marketing industry professional called, in perhaps a bit of hyperbole, "a little Death Star-ish."

A Facebook representative declined to confirm and said the company did not have any comment beyond official documents released on its Facebook Marketing Solutions page.

Let's step back. Cracking down on contests and promotions might seem draconian, but it's actually important for Facebook: the U.S. state and federal laws that govern sweepstakes are extremely complicated, and by allowing only approved contests, Facebook is making sure that its bases are covered.

"Any promotion that any brand, product, or company would run has to have a terms of service against it," said Gunter Pfau, CEO of the Stuzo Group, an agency that has developed numerous Facebook contests and sweepstakes for clients. "Also, depending on the prize value, they need to be filed with various state regulatory agencies."

What, exactly, is new for contests? If a brand is running a contest on its fan page, it has to be handled through an embedded, separately developed application--not, for example, in the page's "wall." Promotions also can't involve Facebook users manipulating their user photos or status messages specifically for the contest.

Legal experts agree that this is necessary. "The (new Facebook) guidelines really cover only a narrow subset of promotions, specifically sweepstakes, contests, and similar competitions," explained Thomas Williams, a partner at the Chicago law firm Howrey, who specializes in trademark law. "That type of contest or promotion is governed by a myriad of state and federal regulations, so what I think Facebook is attempting to do here is merely shield itself from liability that arises out of its users' potential violations of these laws."

Williams continued: "I think it's a prudent and reasonable step on Facebook's part. There are lawyers who specialize in sweepstakes law, and there really are a lot of twists and turns to it."

One thing it'll also do, Stuzo Group's Gunter Pfau explained, is keep dishonest campaigns and promotions off the Facebook platform. "I think it's great news for consumers," he said. "I think what Facebook is doing is really laying these guidelines in place for companies to protect consumers more."

But what about the new ad spend requirements? Facebook has historically pitched its developer platform and fan pages as a free way for advertisers and marketers to tap into the power of "the social graph"--its 300 million-plus active users and their connections to one another. And while it's clear that the company sees these free pages and applications as a stepping stone for ad dollars--Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, for example, regularly gives Madison Avenue talks about the company's "engagement ads"--it doesn't have a long track record of requiring advertisers to pay for something that used to be free.

"It makes sense for Facebook, but (it's) a little discouraging to advertisers," commented Alisa Leonard-Hansen, who holds the title of social-media evangelist at digital-marketing firm iCrossing. "Facebook is continually trying to discover new ways to monetize, and they picked up on the trend that advertisers were using their pages to run contests and other promotions. I think Facebook was looking to be able to benefit from this marketing trend."

The ad spend requirements, too, could be considered partial compensation for the new human resources required in Facebook's approval process. Each company running contests on Facebook now has a designated advertising sales representative, and fan pages will continue to have to be policed for potential violations of both advertiser regulations and sweepstakes law.

There might not be a lot of friction as the new regulations go into effect. Companies that don't run contests on their Facebook fan pages or applications won't be affected. Even some that do, especially small-scale fan pages that could easily go unnoticed by Facebook, won't have to change much. "Of course, there are going to be savvy marketers who skirt this and run (contests) under the radar," Alisa Leonard-Hansen said.

It really goes without saying the obvious: this is Facebook's service, and it can do what it wants with it. That doesn't mean marketers will stop grumbling. As one put it in a phone call to CNET, "This is another example of Facebook saying, 'Sorry, eat it, you've got no choice.'"

Apple's brand is getting stronger, according to the 2009 Best Global Brands list released on Thursday by market research firm Interbrand.

Calling Apple "among the most iconic of relatively young brands in the world," Interbrand moved it up four spots since its 2008 evaluation of the world's top 100 brands, from No. 24 to No. 20.

While many of the companies stayed near last year's ranking, the top five brands in the world did not move at all from 2008's report: Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft, General Electric, and Nokia.

(Credit: Interbrand)

Other brands on the list naturally include McDonald's, Google, Toyota, Intel, Disney, Mercedes Benz, Honda, and Samsung.

As the 'Superbad' character McLovin taught us, a name change can make all the difference.

(Credit: Columbia Pictures)

It's out with the not-so-old and in with the new for AOL CEO Tim Armstrong as he commemorates 100 days at the helm of the dot-conglomerate. Less than a year after AOL launched a new brand called "MediaGlow to encompass all its publishing properties, the company is getting rid of the name and reestablishing it as the far less cute "AOL Media." The company's advertising division, Platform-A, is now "AOL Advertising."

And the properties grouped into the "People Networks" division that was established when AOL acquired social network Bebo (for way too much money) will be worked into three new divisions: AOL Communication, AOL Local and Mapping, and AOL Ventures.

The announcements were made at the latest stop for the "100 Days of Tim Armstrong" party train, a company "revival" meeting in a massive air-conditioned tent (yes, like an evangelical preacher, Tim Armstrong threw a tent revival) in which employees were encouraged to post to Twitter about the goings-on and tag it all with #aol100.

Business Insider was watching the tweets roll in, and picked up on Armstrong's announcement of the division name changes.

But on a more serious note, this does represent a strategic shift in direction for AOL, at least on the marketing front. Brands like Platform-A and MediaGlow seemed to consciously avoid the AOL moniker, which still hasn't shaken off the connotations of late-'90s dial-up access. Armstrong, it appears, believes that keeping "AOL" in there will actually make things stronger--he comes, after all, from Google, which proudly displays its primary-colored logo on virtually all of its properties. At the very least, it'll express a bit more internal faith in the viability of the AOL brand.

Maybe they can do a "you've got mail" mashup remix while they're at it.

UPDATE at 5:21 p.m. PT: Reader David Montgomery made some hilarious art for the occasion, inspired by the poster for the new movie "500 Days of Summer":

(Credit: David Montgomery)

Brand Thunder, a company that lets people customize Firefox with brands, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Ohio TechAngels and other angel investors, the company said Tuesday.

The company revamps the open-source Web browser with various brands such as Nascar, hockey teams, country singer Julianne Hough, and various other partners.

To fund its business, Brand Thunder also changes the default search engine to Yahoo, which shares resulting advertising revenue with the company.

Brand Thunder also said it's signed a new partnership with Major League Soccer for a branded browser.

Update 9:45 a.m. PST: The company followed up with details of the funding: $350,000 from TechColumbus, $200,000 from the Ohio TechAngels Fund, and $200,000 from other angel investors.

In addition, the company said it expects to break even by the end of the quarter. It had hoped to do so in February, but a slowdown in Yahoo search delayed it slightly. The company also receives revenue from maintenance, upfront fees, and other sources.

Brand Thunder lets people customize Firefox with assorted brands.

(Credit: Brand Thunder)

Google's brand name value jumped from 20th place last year to 10th in 2008, according to the latest version of an annual study that ranks the best brands, with only four technology companies ahead of it on the list.

Microsoft slipped from second to third place, edged down a peg by IBM, according to the study by BusinessWeek and Interbrand, which base their results on the value of the brand as judged by how much revenue it will likely earn for the company.

Coca-Cola is king, but technology companies are common in the top 25 brands.

(Credit: BusinessWeek/Interbrand)

Google showed the strongest gain, with a value that increased 43 percent to $25.6 billion, the study said. Next in line was 24th-place Apple, whose brand value rose 24 percent to $13.7 billion.

Coca-Cola remains the top, with a $66.7 billion in brand value, but technology companies are well represented on the list. No. 5 is Nokia, Intel No. 7, Hewlett-Packard No. 12, Cisco No. 17, Samsung No. 21, Oracle No. 23, and Sony No. 25.