Seems like TechCrunch isn’t the only company around that is having trademark issues.

Apple is throwing around its litigious might again, sending a cease and desist to another company whose name or products resemble the name iPod.

The blogosphere is yet again picking up on this:

• Jasan Calacanis feels getting sued by Apple out of existence is the best thing a small company (from a marketing point of view)
• Dave Winer puts podcasting into a bit of a historical perspective
• Leo Laporte feels that we ought to just call it a different name (”Netcasting?”)

However, unlike TechCrunch, Apple is having the same problem Google had a few weeks ago — which, quite frankly, in the realm of “problems” is actually a nice problem to have:

Apple and its products are so big and so popular, that they have become synomyous with a product category itself.

“Google”, for example, has moved beyond the proper noun that describes the company, on to a verb (”small g”) that describes the process of searching for stuff (using Google). As Steve Reubel notes – its even in the dictionary.

“Xerox” has also moved beyond the proper noun to a verb that describes making a copy using a photocopier.

Kleenex.

Rolodex.

Frisbee.

Palm.

Now, “Podcast” joins them. It has become synonymous with the process of an audio recording that you can easily subscribe through RSS technologies on the Internet.
Why is Apple gettings it underwear in knots? Why bother protecting your trademark by hauling out your all-star law team?

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Sometimes on weekends, I’ll be posting about non-web2.0, non-blogging, whatever happens to interest me kind of stuff.

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is one of those things.

It is hard to describe the sheer awesomeness of this amazing product — so I won’t bother (too much). More informed opinions below. But, this morning while doing some cleaning, I noticed that my white sneakers were looking a little worse for wear. Originally, they were a pair of white leather (or leather-like) puma sneakers (MSRP $39).

Lo’ how I wished I had taken my digital camera to them!

Because, in fact, they had turned a positively light shade of grey, with many black marks hiding deep scuffs into its leathery surface.

Bubbling up from the deep recesses of my mind, a small bit of informata reached the surface: could those Mr. Clean Erasers that my wife had been ranting about clean my sneakers?

15 minutes later, I swore I could hear a hallelujah chorus and feel the warm radiance of the Lord Our God bathing me in His Brilliance as I had an epiphany:

Mr. Clean’s Magic Erasers Rock.

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• My Book, by Me
  Awesome! Blurb is a service where you can publish commercial grade books by yourself — even one run copies! A review courtesy of FastCompany. Publish-icious!
  (tags: fastcompany self-publishing publishing diy)
• A Bag for Bloggers?
  Well, its named for bloggers anyway. The Timbuk2 Blogger Bag, courtesy of Uncrate is a laptop bag made out of ballistic nylon. Nice.
  (tags: cool bag laptop)

Early this morning (eastern standard time), it seems like the whole trademark thing between TechCrunch and TechCrush has been nothing more than a tempest in a teapot, with the trademark tiff ending in very tempered way.

Mr. Arrington also posted recently:

mid day, Sept 21: I speak with my lawyer. we discuss asking them to put a disclaimer on the site that they aren’t affiliated with techcrunch. I send an email to Lutz that says “Hey Lutz, Spoke to my lawyer at length today. How about a statement somewhere, preferably in the header area, that simply says you aren’t affiliated with TechCrunch in any way? If that doesn’t work for you, let’s keep talking…and there is no need to stop posting on the site…looking forward to more good content. Mike”

To which TechCrush confirmed:

We had contact with Michael Arrington on a possible trademark infringement with Techcrunch, but we settled the matter quick and amicably. I got to know Michael as a decent and professional guy. Thanks Michael.

After all, Techcrush is not supposed to be affiliated with Techcrunch anyway. Besides Techcrunch we will make use of several other blogs as sources for our articles.

The cynically jaded blogger in me was anticipating an all out pugilistic power struggle (if crushing a pea-sized startup could be described as a “struggle”), but (and in spite of his current woes) to Mr. Arrington’s credit things have worked out very collegially – without the sending of C&D’s and getting lawyers involved.

Its a bit of a shame other web2.0 giants hadn’t pursued a similar path.

Digg rattling sabres at DiggGames. O’Reilly posturing about “Web2.0″.

It seems so … uncivilized.

Now, not being a lawyer, its hard for me to comment on the details of trademark law; as I understand it, it is absolutely necessary that companies protect their trademark, or else it is open for all kinds of future abuse in the court of law (and public opinion?). While sending C&D’s are untasteful, perhaps it is a legal necessity.

Which brings me to wonder what the consequences of this will be for TechCrunch.

See, (tip to: Clique Comm), although Mr. Arrington no doubt did this in a very professional manner, I wonder whether or not any of it was predicated by the fact that there is no trademark to defend?

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• Kevin Rose to Take on InternetTV?
  Apparently wired got an invitation to an event Sept 26 regarding their approach to InternetTV. My take is that it will require a lot of beer. Here’s for more cool and less sophomoric.
  (tags: kevinrose monkeybites wired internettv digg)
• The Keys To Making Distribution Work
  Courtesy of Guy Kawasaki, naturally. The difference between virality and distribution plus 9 other great hints that get you to get distribution to work for you. Start me up!
  (tags: marketing viral howto distribution startup kawasaki)
• Basis for Psychosis Mapped?
  A sense of paranoia common to diseases such as schizophrenia may have been mapped, thanks to some work with epilepsy. Courtesy of Reuters. Cool!
  (tags: neurosurgery neurology reuters epilepsy schizophrenia)

Metrics nerds, rejoice!

For those who are interested in their blog’s metrics, my new love is TanTan’s Google Analytics and Feedburner Plugin.

Metrics nerds probably monitor these metric packages anyway, but the wonderful thing about these plugins is that they automate it right into your Wordpress dashboard.

That’s right.

Rather than opening up a separate tabs for Feedburner or Googe Analytics, you can log into your blog and have the results right there in the dash. Coupled with my installation of Wp-Slimstat, I can now, at a glance get an easy view of most of my blog’s metrics all in one place.

TanTan’s plugin is an easy install. Download the .zip file, unzip it, upload the folder to your plugins folder, then activate.

From there, another tab called “reports” is created in the dashboard. Just follow the instructions therein and you’ll be rarin’ to go in no time.

The other advantage — it allows you to install the Google Analytics code-snippet auto-magically! That is, you won’t have to edit the “footer.php” of your favourite theme to put that piece of javascript.
Now, then having said that, the metrics are a bit limited.

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Round 5 opens October 25th.

… you only have 24 hours to submit your site on that day. On October 25 starting at 12:00am Eastern Time (what some of you might consider October 24 midnight) the submission page will open and you can submit as many sites as you are a part of. If you are not sure your site fits in one of 25+ communities don’t hesitate to send it our way as we are always looking to branch out into new subjects.

The fourth round brought over 700 submissions, so it should be interesting to see how Round 5 fares.

9Rules is one of a few blog networks around. Here is a list of others.

They happen to be pretty damn particular (accepted just over 100 in the last round) with the people they allow into their circle; luckily, they happen to be of extraordinary quality as well. 9Rules also happens to try and hook into blogs that are not necessarily popular, but good.

The aim for quality is an admirable one, and we’ll have to see if they keep it up with their next round.