The Shortlist: Part 3

9) Loyalty to dead media formats

·         The bosses at Independent News & Media
-- Editor turned MD Simon Kelner thinks the web is like a horrible noisy bar. Really

·         The Financial Times
-- Crap online, brilliant in print. Memo to Mr Barber: Resign and hand the show over to those Alphaville boys. Before it's too late.

·         Incisive Media
-- When he shut down IT Week, MG Graham Harman told Press Gazette: “You have to say to yourself ‘If I was launching into this market now what would I do? What do [readers] want now and how do I service them?’”
Fine advice. So why the hell is Incisive still publishing Computing as a weekly newspaper? Answers on a postcard, please.
 

10) Rebrand of the year

Company in trouble? Call it something else…nobody will ever guess. Product not selling? Give it a new name…that'll boost sales. Do they think we're stupid? No, they don't think it. The research said so.

·         Enfatico
-- Jesus. What's this? A pizza 'n' pasta chain? No, sorry. . . it's the appalingly weak name given to WPP's standalone agency dedicated to Dell. Apparently, Enfatico signifies: "a hyper-responsive, truly integrated marketing agency designed from the ground up to create value for our clients". Or should that be client?

·         CNET Networks becomes. . . CBS Interactive
-- Take one hallowed digital brand and flog it to a TV company whose DNA owes more to Mad Men than dot.com. Granted, we quite like CBS's logo. It has stayed the same for so long that it's become hip again. Back to square one? You betcha.

·         CSC
-- The "leading global consulting, systems integration and outsourcing company" isn't quite the world's leading anything. But the guff it used to explain its rebranding this year was very dire. El Reg's gag about cutting corners is priceless.

11) Bandwagon jump of the year

·         McAfee warns of terrorists in virtual worlds
-- But if they’re virtual, can they terrorize us? Er, no. don’t think so.

·         HP, Sun & Teradata: Wind power madness
-- Why have hardware manufacturers started using pictures of wind farms on their websites? Like, everywhere. . .

·         IBM: Project Big Green
-- Big Blue promises to spend $1bn on a bid to "dramatically increase the efficiency" of the company's software and hardware. But IBM has told no-one how it intends to spend this money. . . And oddly, the company stopped issuing Big Green press releases around the time (late August) that the price of oil started to plummet. Funny that.