Yahoo! News - Apple Edges Google as Top Brand

Congrats to Apple. I think the company has definitely captured the attention of the public and the press. It's got a great deal of momentum -- but I think it faces significant challenges as subscription-based music services become increasingly attractive. Unless Apple jumps on it, power may shift towards the WMV-format players that have been designed with that in mind from the beginning.

That Google is #2 globally and in North America is utterly amazing, considering that the company does *no* significant commercial advertising.

By the way, I just noticed that Real has a promo for Google Toolbar on the bottom of its web site. Could there be a possible partnership of some sort in store for these two companies? Yahoo! and AOL both have substantial media/music businesses. Google doesn't. Hmm...