Confused? We were too when we discovered in late November that Ankesh Kumar and Rajiv Dutta started a group email service called SocialMail. You may recall that we launched a group email service last year called SocialMail. We have contacted Ankesh and Rajiv and explained that their use of our trademark would likely confuse users and asked them nicely to start using another name. Their response? Let me assure you, it wasn’t very “social”.
First, they suggested that since we released the SocialMail source code under the GPL license, we removed our right to a trademark on the name SocialMail. Later Ankesh clarified that that open source is a defined business model worthy of trademark protection, but he wasn’t sure that we were running an open source project worthy of trademark protection.
Next, they suggested that you could not “protect a name when it’s not part of your core business.” His feeling was that my post indicating why we were open sourcing our tools indicated that we no longer sought trademark protection for the SocialMail brand. This, despite, the fact that we stressed that we would continue to operate the SocialMail service as well as sell it to our clients as a dedicated service.
To be clear: SocialMail is a trademark of Big in Japan. We filed an application with the USPTO (No. 77055585) and have used the term in trade for quite some time. We will continue to use the brand in the marketing of our group email service and software.
Posted by amuse | December 11, 2006 - 9:54am | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Social Media, socialmail
Our team has been busy working on various social interaction tools for Courtney Cox’s new television series, Dirt. The launch is scheduled for January 2nd, but the premiere is December 9th. The Big in Japan team will be out of the offices Friday the 8th so please excuse our absence. We will let you know how we like the show (of course Jake has already seen the pilot ~ darned social media experts get all of the perks!).
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Posted by amuse | December 5, 2006 - 3:43pm | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: biggu, biginjapan, courtneycox, dirt, Social Media
Allen Gwinn has a blog where he talks about city politics and other related issues. Most interestingly he offers several databases with interesting tidbits such as Dallas employee salaries as well as credit cards. The credit card spending habits of city employees is most interesting. Check it out here. Perhaps Allen could start monitoring the police as well…
Posted by amuse | December 4, 2006 - 9:50pm | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Dallas, Social Media
So what? The Pawn Gallery’s first location was MySpace, on December 1st they move into our space. The art gallery built a following on MySpace ensuring their grand opening was a huge success. Very nice work by a local company!
The company explains:
The Pawn Gallery at 2540 Elm in Deep Ellum is celebrating it’s grand opening on December 1, 2006. We are here first and foremost as a champion of the artist. Artists pawn their integrity, self respect and style in order to have a gallery to show their work. Then the creations are sold like a slab of meat at the butcher shop. We are attempting to showcase the creators of the world in an unadulterated form. [via]
Posted by amuse | December 4, 2006 - 10:00am | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Dallas, myspace, Social Media
Local students from SMU won second place in the Chipotle/YouTube “30 Seconds of Fame” contest. Students, organized in 70 teams from more than 20 colleges were asked to create 30-second commercials for Chipotle to compete for a $10,000 prize.
The winning entry from the University of Nebraska was watched more than 8,000,000 times with the second place entry from SMU being watched more than 7,700,000 times. Add those views with those of the 68 other entries and you get a number north of 30,000,000 views of Chipotle advertisements. The total investment by Chipotle? $30,000 ~ .001 cent per view. What would Chipotle have spent to produce an ad much less get college students to watch it 30,000,000 times?
Social media programs like this have the added benefit of helping a brand build a tighter bond with its hardcore fans as well as the possibility of reaching new fans. Thanks to Mike for pointing this one out.
Posted by amuse | December 3, 2006 - 7:58pm | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: chipotle, Social Media, youtube
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