Tonights ranting is on: Trademark and branding

Over my winter session of classes, my professor introduced us to a website. It was more so to show us how social media and random websites can have such a larger following then even our local papers.  We compared our Stevens Point Journal, to GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle.com

As you can see, GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle has a higher daily reach then even UWSP, and even a lot more than the Stevens Point Journal.

GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle’s idea was quite simple.  It was 4 iframes on the page each pointing to Google.  You could resize the windows; point them to other sites and a few other pretty cool tasks.  I made a comment to Professor Krause, about wondering how long it would take before Google complained about the use of their trademark.  The site clearly didn’t alter content or gain anything from the users, however because of the domain name, it does violate Google’s trademark claims. We were not sure how long it would be, but figured Google would likely find it soon enough.

Today during class, I went to GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle to do some side-by-side searching, to find a note from the site’s author saying the site was going to be taken down because of a take down notice that they received from Google.

I am going to miss the site, because it did come to be pretty useful.  Trademarks and branding are important to a person and company.  From Google’s side, if they don’t protect their trademark, they risk losing it.

It brings me to a new point as well.  I’ve gone by the nickname Freekie for most of my “Online” life.  I’ve moved away from it slightly, using CoreyRants.com instead of my old Freekie.net.  Mostly because the projects I’ve started on freekie.net have never worked, and Corey Rants seems to be more about what I blog about. Rants, raves and other stuff that happens in my life.    I’m thinking of possibly switching my twitter nickname from Freekie to Corey Rants.  It would create a single online presence, but haven’t decided what I want to do just yet.

I’ll keep you all updated as I progress on the Twitter handle.

Feel free to stop over to GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle.com and write the author a few well wishes.

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Professor Krause also wrote about this, check out his take on the topic.