Google is de-branding its product price comparison tool, dropping what the company admits now was an ill-conceived brand, “Froogle,” and calling it something that I hope they didn’t pay a consultant to dream up, but what is a vast improvement and worthy of whatever the fee was, nonetheless: Google Product Search.
Quote from CNET News.com:
“I don’t think we understood the complications with rolling out another brand,” Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search product and user experience, said. “While it was a cute and clever name, it had issues around copyright and trademark, as well as internationalization…The pun (to “frugal”) isn’t obvious.”
I’m impressed with her candor.
I think it’s also telling that Foogle, introduced in 2005, never dropped the “Beta” — until, well, now.
Bonus links:
Lots of good Danny Sullivan.
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The “code of conduct” issue made it to NPR this morning, although in the piece, it’s referred to as a “code of ethics” by reporter Adam Davidson. There’s nothing new to most of the people who read this blog, although it is worthwhile to see how NPR listeners will have the Sierra issue and response interpreted to them. (However, the Sierra quotes sound as if they are from an interview conducted a few weeks ago — some of the things she says seem tied to her response at the time, not what she has said more recently.)
Speaking of NPR, yesterday (or was it Monday), Craig Newmark, creator of Craig’s list was featured on This I Believe, a weekly Morning Edition segment.
Quote:
“Most people share a similar moral compass: They play fair, they give each other a break and they generally get along.”
That sounds like a pretty good “code of conduct” to me.
With that inspiration, here’s the rexblog code of conduct: “Play fair, give other people a break and try your best to generally get along. And whenever it looks like things are getting out of control, stop, hold hands and sing Kumbaya.”
I saw yesterday that 15% of email users polled in a recent survey would rather live without their spouse or significant other than go without e-mail. With an overnight BlackBerry system failure cutting off the email flow of millions, maybe some of those survey respondents should use this window of time to reintroduce themselves to their spouses. I wonder if we’ll be reading about a “BlackBerry blackout baby boom” in nine months?
