Why do people make predictions? Search me, folks. Well, back in 1983, Harvard Business School's resident 'genius', Theodore 'Ted' Levitt, made a very bold and startling one. So mind-boggling was it indeed that the marketing circles took to it virtually as gospel. The prediction was simply that, with globalization looming on the horizon, there would soon come a time when "global companies would be selling products and services in the same way everywhere on earth". Twenty odd years down the line though, it looks like Levitt was a bit carried away when he proclaimed what he did in the early eighties. Two Wharton marketing professors, George S. Day and David J. Reibstein, point out that, in fact, there are few truly transnational brands even today. And, despite the fact that the world appears to be shrinking rapidly, adapting brands to local conditions is often the best policy - and at times the only policy - because local conditions will leave the marketers no other alternative. "We know the limits of global brands," opines Day. "I don't think there is ambiguity about how far you can push the idea. We know the downside if you try to go too far." And: "I am often asked by companies, 'Should I have a global brand?' and the answer is always 'Yes.' But that really is an oversimplified answer," adds Reibstein. In short, global branding is not an all-or-nothing credo. The 'hybrid' approach, i.e., the decision to combine local and global brands devolves on many factors (products, industry, local cultures, nature of the competition). http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1206.cfm.

GOOGLE. Insanely individualistic and idiosyncratic.

A couple of weeks back, I waxed eloquent on Google's flair for the unusual, the bizarre - even the quixotic. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1351868,0003.htm. If you need more proof about my gut feel expressed there, I suggest you visit http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/000681.html. More details: http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/. (Please see the 19 May 'The Google Factory Tour, Wrap-up, We Will' post and several subsequent posts.)

FIREFOX. Spreading like a wild fire no more.

'FIREFOX CRAZE. Now on a slow burn.' http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1276852,00030007.htm was this column's comment on the slowing down of the Firefox browser adoption rate, written in early March, remember? Now WebSideStory, the well-renowned on-demand digital marketing applications provider http://www.websidestory.com/products/web-analytics/datainsights/spotlight/05-10-2005.html, tells us that "Firefox's usage share continues to grow and is nearing 7 per cent [in the US]". In fact, it grew by more than a per centage point since WebSideStory's last report on 18 February. "Given its current growth patterns, Firefox is still within range of reaching 10 per cent market share in the U.S. in 2005." Also: "Firefox's usage tends to vary dramatically by country. For example, the upstart browser has more than 22 per cent market share in Germany, while less than 3 per cent in Japan."

OUTSOURCING. India's rivals proliferate.

Mid-May http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1361441,00030007.htm ('OFFSHORING. Literally so. And, no tummy ache.'), we looked at a new twist to the outsourcing business. Now, I suggest you go to http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=specialsection&specialid=25 and look at the bunch of four Wharton U articles on offshoring. In one of them called 'Move Over, India: The Shifting Geography of Offshore Outsourcing Creates New Challengers', the claims of seriously contending 'alt.-India' locations, 40 of them in the Middle and Far East (Singapore, Malaysia, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, Dubai, Jordan, Jamaica, Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados, Guyana, Fiji, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and in the Caribbean), Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary) and Latin America (Uruguay, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico) as well as South Africa and Canada are examined. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1100&specialId=25. P.S.: Another interesting India-centric facet of outsourcing was discussed in 'INDIA CALLING. "Backpackers, most welcome!"' http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1351868,0003.htm.

MOVE OVER, MONOPOLY. Blog(o)poly are here.

If you're offended by my apparent disregard for grammar and spelling, please accept my apologies. At http://littleoslo.com/eng/feature/ I found 'Blogpoly', a board game that its sire, an unnamed Norwegian artist, calls "a guide to the Blogosphere Ecosystem". The layout includes one Web log, BoingBoing.net, and dozens of blog business services and suppliers including Wordpress, Movable Type, Blogger, Friendster, Wikipedia and Creative Commons, and two public utilities -- the waterworks and the electric company.  'Criminal' is 'spammer'. 'Free parking' is 'free hosting'. At http://aarons.cc/2004/02/12/1066/ there's the much older Blogopoly, the brain-child of the talented Aaron - a game in the layout of which everybody who's anybody in blogosphere is seemingly dying to be included. One thing's pretty obvious from all this, though. Anything that inspires board games has really, really 'arrived', if you know what I mean.

BLOGOSPHERE STATUS REPORT. Gaining traction? Or, losing it?

There are two contrasting views on what's going on in blogosphere of late. A 2005 (Q1) update (sample = 2871 Internet users) of last year's Pew Internet & American Life Project report had 9 per cent blog authors (11 per cent men; 8 per cent women; 19 per cent young adults between 18 - 29: up 2 per cent overall) and 25 per cent readers (36 per cent between 18 - 29; 18 per cent over 50; down 2 per cent overall). The 25 per cent "translates into 32 million American adults," points out Enid Burns ('Blogs Continue to Gain Traction'). http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/traffic_patterns/article.php/3502201. Then, there's the eMarketer report http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1003396, priced at $695, which Steve Rubel calls "a downer". Rubel is a MicroPersuasion.com blogger and an executive of New York's CooperKatz, the PR firm that guides companies in the use of blogs as business tools. So, maybe he has a vested interest in the future of blogs. The eMarketer report said that only 4 per cent of leading U.S. corporations had 'public' blogs so far for corporate marketing, communications or advertising. "Blogging is an explosively popular social phenomenon that is spilling into the business world. But thus far the financial and economic impact of blogging has been minimal," says Ezra Palmer, eMarketer's editorial director, the author of the report. "All eMarketer really did here is regurgitate a lot of existing numbers that are already out there and confirm that there is a lot of fear in Corporate America.  Wow, what insight," grumbles Steve Rubel in his blog ('Let the Blog Bashing Begin', 13 May 2005) at http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/. What do you think? P.S.: A series useful and informative presentations on the changing field of communication blog exists in from the WOMMA Summit 2005 can be found at http://www.womma.org/summit/agenda.htm.

CEOS & BLOGS DON'T MIX? USA Today thinks so.

Still on the subject of blogs, in a US Today story headlined 'CEOs refuse to get tangled up in messy blogs' (10 May), Del Jones poses an important question. Why among 8½ million bloggers as of now there is not a single CEO of a Fortune 1000 chairman and/or CEO? "A blog by a prominent CEO would attract instant traffic, could influence public opinion, perhaps steer legislation and maybe sell a few widgets," argues Jones. "…despite all of the power and sway that awaits an early adopter, it [will] take a brave CEO with thick skin to enter the blogosphere." Because: "Companies have been trained to be inoffensive. …The blogosphere … wars against harmony …air[s] dirty laundry." http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2005-05-09-blog-cover_x.htm . Rubel, though, argues in his 10 May post that the USA Today article has made a mountain out of molehill. http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/. He writes: "Often the most interesting corporate blogs are the ones that are written by the rank and file. They come from the passionate 'gut' of the company, not necessarily from the top." And: "The maverick CEOs - Mark Cuban, Bob Liodice, Alan Meckler and Bob Lutz - they all blog from the gut. They're naturals. Not every exec is a natural, but there's always someone in the rank [and] file who is." Hmmm!