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Lenovo used a boatload of resources to win the contest to design the Olympic torch for this summer's Games, and what's the world's reaction? Derision and anger.

Of course, it has nothing to do with Lenovo or the torch design and everything to do with China's human rights record, its crackdown on protesters in Tibet, and its ongoing support of Sudan's government.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how Lenovo's $100 million-plus marketing blitz as one of the official sponsors of the Games held in its own backyard could actually be a major blunder from a brand perspective.

Lenovo executives apparently expected some protests, but were "caught off guard" by the animosity the torch was met with during the traditional relay, particularly in London, Paris, and San Francisco. But Lenovo still has several months to go before the Games begin, and the company is adamant its association with the Games and with China won't hurt its aspirations of becoming a global PC brand name on the level of Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

See the Journal story for more.

SAN FRANCISCO--In a switcheroo that threw off hundreds of protesters and put Twitter and text-message alert systems to the test, city officials here decided to take the Olympic torch relay on a far different route Wednesday than had been previously announced.

The relay had been highly anticipated, largely because of security concerns related to protesters who--fueled by Web campaigns--came out in droves to oppose the Chinese government's plans to carry the torch through Tibet, or more generally, the government's overall human rights record.

As crowds of spectators and protesters awaited the torch along the city's Embarcadero and at the foot of the Market Street thoroughfare, the relay took off by bus in the opposite direction to Van Ness Avenue and then into the Marina District in the north part of the city, according to news reports. That set off a storm of Twitters--some of which were pasted onto this page at SFist--and a constant stream of text messages as people tried to figure out what was happening and which direction to head.

"We are reorganizing the protest, sending text messages with minute-by-minute updates on where the torches are," said Tawni Tidwell, a member of protest organizer SF Team Tibet. "People are using their cell phones, BlackBerrys, and PDAs. We are also updating media though our phones, sending pictures."

Tidwell added: "It would be really, really hard if we didn't have this. Can you imagine if the protesters in Lhasa had this technology? Witnesses could just send things in."

Of course, such forms of instant communication are only so reliable--I'm on an sms feed from SF Team Tibet and am still trying to sort out what's accurate and what's just rumor. It seems the planned closing ceremony was canceled and the torch is now enroute to the airport. (Followers are encouraged.)

CNET News.com's Hanna Sistek contributed to this report.

SAN FRANCISCO--Wearing T-shirts reading "Free Tibet," hundreds of protesters raised their fists here Tuesday to protest the Beijing Olympic torch relay's arrival to the city. Most were from the Bay Area, but some came all the way from New York and Canada to mark their opposition to the Chinese government's plans to carry the torch through Tibet and to the summit of Mount Everest.

SF Team Tibet, a coalition of Tibetans and human-rights supporters that organized the event, is calling on corporate Olympic sponsors Samsung, Lenovo, and Coca-Cola to withdraw their support of the torch relay. The organizers are also calling on international governments to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympics "to show they do not endorse the Chinese government's brutal actions in Tibet."

Some of the groups in the coalition support the Olympics being held in China as long as the games result in dialogue.

Organizers of Tuesday's protests, which are expected to continue full force Wednesday, are, not surprisingly, using the Web as a tool at the site SFTorch2008.org. Not only is the site being used as a rallying point for information and photos, the organizers are signing up people to receive e-mails on events in the area and asking for donations.

The protesters are hardly the first to use Web sites. The massive rallies prior to the Iraq War--and flash mob-like protests in cities such as San Francisco--were largely organized through the Web and other electronic communications such as texting.

At Tuesday's protest, some demonstrators held up red signs reading "Made in China" to bring attention to Americans' use of goods made in the country. Last year, U.S. trade with China amounted to $322 billion in imports and $65 billion in exports, according to figures from the U.S. Census bureau. Twenty-seven percent of the imports from China, or $88 billion worth, were "advanced technology products," according to the Census Bureau, while one-third of the exports to China fell into that category. This includes computers, biotech products, solar cells, and fiber-optic cable.

Among the speakers Tuesday were representatives of Students for a Free Tibet, the Tibet Association of Northern California, and Regional Tibetan Youth Congress. Protester Thupten Dhondup, 40, was born in Nepal to Tibetan parents. "I came here today because I support the suffering Tibetans," he said. "So many people are being killed and nobody knows what is happening in Lhasa now; nobody is allowed in."

Also at the rally, Tibetan monks released 50 white doves in a scene framed by a forest of colorful Tibetan flags brought by the crowd.

For more photos of the New York protest, click here

Hundreds of Internet users stood outside for hours in the cold on Sunday morning, and they weren't waiting for a shipment of Nintendo Wiis. They were Anonymous, a group of online activists standing outside the New York City Church of Scientology to protest the organization's policies. The protest was one of many conducted across the world at major Scientology centers on that day.

The New York City protest saw between 200 and 300 Anonymous gather outside of the Church of Scientology New York. Other prominent "raids" included 150-200 Anonymous meeting in Sydney and 500 Anonymous meeting in London to protest the Church. The protests were a part of "Operation Chanology," Anonymous' efforts to discredit the Church of Scientology.

The raids were generally peaceful, with few disturbances reported. In New York, Anonymous cooperated with the NYPD to ensure the safety of its members and a minimum of disruption. NYPD officers escorted Anonymous from their meeting place in Bryant Park up to the Church of Scientology New York building, where they stood behind cordons to allow traffic to continue down 46th Street.

Like its name implies, Anonymous is less an organization than a loose confederation of Internet message board readers and IRC chat network users. Sites like 4chan.org (warning: content may not be work-safe) brought together thousands of Internet users with a variety of interests and vocations. Anonymous seldom meet physically in large numbers outside of their message boards and chat channels. The February 10 "raids" presented one of the first examples of major Anonymous movement outside of the Internet. The February 10th date was chosen because it was the birthday of Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist Anonymous alleges was killed due to the Church of Scientology's actions.

While "Anonymous" was initially a joke directed at certain news organizations, the group began to come together in January as a response to the Church of Scientology's request for Youtube to remove a Scientology video involving Tom Cruise. Since then, Anonymous groups have protested the Church of Scientology, distributed anti-Scientology materials, and allegedly performed "Denial of Service" attacks on the Church's telecommunications systems.

The Church of Scientology issued a statement on February 10 in response to the Anonymous attacks. According to the statement, released by Rev. John Carmichael, President of the Church of Scientology New York, Anonymous has been committing hate crimes against the Church. The release described Anonymous as "cyber-terrorists," and alleged that Anonymous members threatened the Church and mailed "white powder" to dozens of its branches. The Church went on to denounce Anonymous as individuals who hide behind masks and Internet anonymity.

According to Anonymous, its members wear masks and hide their identity to protect themselves against the Church of Scientology's "Fair Game" policy. Anonymous claims that "Fair Game" is a Church policy that states that any "Suppressive Persons" may be prevented from speaking out against the Church by any means necessary. According to the Church of Scientology's web site, the "Fair Game" policy was canceled in 1968, and the Church does not condone illegal or unethical activities committed in its name.

Tata Motors is billing its tiny, ultracheap Nano as the "people's car," but some people would just as soon not see it get built--at least under current conditions.

The Tata Nano made an outsized splash at its debut Thursday as the world's automotive press disseminated details and photos of the $2,500 car, which the giant company ($7.2 billion in revenue for its most recent fiscal year) said it designed to give Indian families an alternative to overcrowded scooters and to "set a new benchmark among small cars." The Nano is roughly half as expensive as the next lowest-priced car on sale in India.

But while the bright lights of the New Delhi Auto Expo were trained on Tata's minicar, activists near Kolkata were burning the car in effigy. The Trinamool Congress, a West Bengal opposition group, torched a mockup of the Nano in protest over land rights at the factory location. "Until farmers get back their land forcibly acquired for the Tata Motors small car plant at Singur, we will not allow the company to manufacture cars there," opposition leader Partha Chatterjee decreed, according to The Economic Times of India.

In New Delhi, a small group of protesters made a less dramatic showing, but their T-shirt slogans were bold, The Times of India reported: "The ($2,500) car has Singur people's blood on it."

Pundits in the Indian media, meanwhile, debated whether the Nano offers more in the way of marketing hype than real consumer value.

Tata Motors makes cars, trucks, and buses for both the domestic market and for export, and has tie-ups with Italy's Fiat and Korea's Daewoo.

Whether or not Facebook kills its much-derided Beacon program, the controversy surrounding intrusive marketing surveillance deserves to flourish.

You remember the old story about the frog placed in a pot of water that was slowly heated up, until it was cooked? When I read the about Facebook's reaction to the anti-Beacon protests, my first impression is that Facebook's concessions are essentially along the lines of, "OK, we turned up the heat a bit too much on this one, so we'll turn it back down a little bit--for now." Are marketers counting on the fact that we'll get used to the warm bath, then the hot tub, calibrating their fine-tuned ability to stop just short of the lobster pot?

CNN.com contributes a story, "Ad targeting improves as Web sites track consumer habits," which covers the Facebook issue among other case studies. Marketers are studying the sensitivity level of consumers to intrusive advertising and adjusting their programs accordingly. For example, CNN.com reports, "Most Web sites and marketers have been shunning the ultimate targeting--ads that greet you by name. Yahoo could easily do that using registration information, but 'I'm not sure people would like that or not,' said Richard Frankel, Yahoo's senior director of product marketing."

The CNN story continues:

"Users' comfort with data profiling has indeed shifted over the years. Google faced criticism when it introduced an e-mail service that paired ads with the words inside private messages. Millions of people now use Gmail with scarcely a blink.

Users will eventually embrace the latest tactics, too--and by then, they'll complain about even deeper levels of intimacy yet to be invented, said Tracy Ryan, professor of advertising research at Virginia Commonwealth University

'You want to have enough targeting that a consumer notices the message and pays attention, but you don't want it to be so obvious that they are thinking (there) is targeting,' she said. 'That would be scary.'"

... Read more

A protester with a banner advocating free and open-source software briefly upstaged Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at a speech in China on Friday, according to The Associated Press.

As Gates was handing out prizes after his speech at Beijing University, the protester walked onstage, showed his banner, ran off and then was tackled by security personnel. No one was hurt, the AP said.

With software created under the free software or open-source software programming model, underlying source code can be seen, modified and redistributed. Microsoft typically favors the polar opposite, proprietary software whose source code remains a tightly guarded secret.