My Top 40 Brands

I just read Chris Brogan's What's your take on Word of Mouth. His post includes a link to a free copy of Dave Baltar's new book, The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II.

I just read it and was very interested in the story of Top 40 radio and Kasey Kasem's Top 40 radio show. They theory is that people can only remember 40 songs, and that's why corporate radio plays the same songs over and over.

I say more power to them. You can't hear Danity Kane enough.

So that brings me to a list of the Top 40 brands that come to mind. They can be either positive or negative. I'll post a quick impression of the brand and note if they've sent me anything to evaluate:

1 Apple - Love the ease of use
2 Nokia - Open, best video ( N95, N800, N82, and a bunch of acessories )
3 Qik - People and one button streaming ( N95-3 )
4 Blip.tv - Great people and video hosting that works ( Pro Account )
5 Western Digital - Quiet, reliable hard drive, available at Apple Stores
6 Harpoon Beer - Fresh and local
7 JetBlue - Fun and lots of legroom
8 Flip - Easy way to shoot video
9 Nikon- Easy, high quality photos ( D80 )
10 Yamaha - Surround sound without all the speakers and wires
11 Janome sewing machine - Top of my mind for sewing machines from seeing it on NNN and Etsy
12 Revision 3 - Lots of news from them lately, Epic-Fu and Wine Library, Gary Vaynerchuk
13 Etsy - Craft and Bre Pettis
14 Chris Brogan - Lots of interesting info
15 Moblogic.tv - Lindsay Campbell presents her take on the news and includes us, great team!
16 SciFi - BSG
17 HBO - Quality, movies
18 AT&T - Good service ( cell service )
19 Comcast - Fast and reliable
20 TiVo - Best DVR
21 BMW - Quality
22 JP Licks - Free iced coffee on Father's Day
23 Real Deal Deli - Convenient fresh sandwiches
24 Sharp - HD TV
25 Sony - HD TV
26 Sam Adams - Boston beer company, quality
27 Epic Fu - Friends, Now twice a week and fun
28 Barack Obama - Next president with a brain
29 NBC - News
30 American Idol - Fun
31 Bravo - Reality
32 Get Smart - Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway and Dwayne Johnson. Loved the original.
33 Top Chef - Food and fun
34 Celtics - Beat LA!
35 WCVB TV Boston HD - Quality
36 Poland Spring - Sports Bottles
37 Jimmy Fund Dana Farber - Scooperbowl
38 Twitter - Friends
39 iJustine - Everywhere
40 Loic Le Meur - Building an open company ( investor )

Well that was an interesting exercise that didn't take too much time. It's interesting that in the top 5 brands I thought of, 3 of them have sent me products, and out of my top 10, 4 out of 10 have sent me something.

How does my list match yours?