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A pedestrian passes a branch of Chinese sportswear shop Qiaodan Sports in Shanghai on Thursday. Retired NBA superstar Michael Jordan announced that he has filed a lawsuit in China against Qiaodan Sports Company Limited over unauthorized use of his name.

By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

BEIJING – Between Linsanity and Apple’s iPad trademark case, it seems like the only things on people’s minds in China right now are basketball and trademarks.

Leave it to “His Airness” to elevate that talk to another level.

Earlier today, NBA legend Michael Jordan issued a statement announcing that he has filed a lawsuit in Chinese court against Qiaodan Sports Company Ltd., charging the company with using his name and playing number without permission.

“A Chinese sports company has chosen to build a Chinese business off my Chinese name without my permission,” said Jordan in a video statement posted on a special website announcing the suit. "It pains me to see someone misrepresent my identity.”

“Qiaodan” is a transliteration of the name Jordan has gone by in China since he and the NBA took China by storm in the ‘80s and ‘90s, transforming the mainland into a nation of basketball diehards.

“It is deeply disappointing to see a company build a business off my Chinese name without my permission, use the number 23 and even attempt to use the names of my children,” Jordan said, referring to Qiaodan’s recent bid to trademark the name of his children in China. He continued by saying, “I am taking this action to preserve ownership of my name and my brand.”

Jordan’s announcement is a blow to Qiaodan, a Chinese sportswear and footwear manufacturer that has its roots in the 1980s but found tremendous financial success when it changed its name to Jordan’s Chinese moniker in 2000.

Company: Lots of people named 'Jordan'
Since that time, Qiaodan has borrowed heavily from the Jordan mystique to drive sales in China. His iconic number 23 is on much of their sportswear and advertisements and equipment often sport a logo which greatly resembles Nike’s iconic “Jumpman” logo, which accompanies virtually all of Jordan’s branded gear.

Still, the company denies any connection to the NBA legend and argues any resemblance is coincidental.

Speaking to Chinese media today, a spokesman for the company brazenly claimed, “There is no connection, 23 is just a number like $23 or $230 dollars… I don’t think there is a problem at all here.”

He continued by saying Qiaodan goes to great lengths to advertise that the company was a “China national brand” and that there was no need to tell every customer that they are not associated with Jordan since their brand is already unique to the mainland.

Bob Leverone / AP

Charlotte Bobcats owner Michael Jordan smiles as he announces a cash donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank on Feb. 20 in Charlotte, N.C.

“Not everyone will think this is misleading,” said the spokesman. “There are so many Jordans besides the basketball player – there are many other celebrities both in the U.S. and worldwide called Jordan.”

A bold claim by Qiaodan, but one that is seemingly refuted by a 2009 survey conducted by a Shanghai marketing company. They found that 90 percent of 400 young people polled in China’s small cities believed Qiaodan Sports was Michael Jordan’s own brand.

“We live in a competitive marketplace, and Chinese consumers, like anyone else, have a huge amount of choice when it comes to buying clothing, shoes and other merchandise,” said Jordan, “I think they deserve to know what they are buying.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Nike, who markets the “Jordan” brand in China under its English name, which the Oregon-based company registered in China in 1993. It failed, though, to register the Chinese name, allowing Qiaodan to take it in 1998. Attempts by Nike to legally halt Qiaodan from selling under that name were blocked by the Chinese government’s state trademark office 

Subsequently, one can walk into a sports store here in China and often find Nike’s official Jordan line of sportswear on sale just a few racks down from Qiaodan’s brand.

Why now?
In lieu of Nike’s previous experience in attempting to protect its trademark and the fact that Jordan himself has waited 11 years to make his first high profile attempt to stop Qiaodan, the question is: “Why now?”

The answer to that may be found in two recent legal decisions involving two other NBA players.

Stan Abrams of the invaluable China legal and business blog, China Hearsay, wrote about two cases involving Chinese basketball stars – Yi Jianlian and Yao Ming – and the parallels between their two trademark cases and the suit Jordan is bringing against Qiaodan.

In the Yi Jianlian case, a company unaffiliated with the player registered for the trademark of his name in 2005. Yi filed a complaint with the Chinese Trademark Review and Adjudication Board and won in 2009; he also won a subsequent appeal in 2010.

Yao Ming faced a similar issue when he filed suit and won against another Chinese sporting goods company, Wuhan Yunhe, which had attempted to trademark a name associated with the former NBA superstar.

In both cases, lawyers for the players cited Article 31 of Chinese Trademark Law which states: "An application for the registration of a trademark shall not create any prejudice to the prior right of another person, nor unfair means be used to pre-emptively register the trademark of some reputation another person has used.”

Perhaps seeing the trademark law now being more stringently enforced in cases closely paralleling his own, and already knowing the terrific economic potential for himself and his brand in China, Jordan must have seen this as the time to make a definitive move against Qiaodan.

Considering Nike’s failed injunction and the fact that Qiaodan is a purely homegrown Chinese company – a fact that should not be underestimated - Qiaodan must have appeared frustratingly untouchable to Jordan, who touched on fairness in his statement.

“When I was a former player, I played within the rules, I played off of honesty,” said Jordan. “Today, even in business, honesty is something that I truly, truly hold as a high value, and I stay within the guidelines.”

While the lawsuit is primarily for control of his Chinese name in China, Jordan has pledged that any money earned in the lawsuit will be “invested in growing the sport in China.”

“No one should lose control of their own name; China recognizes that for everyone. It’s not about the money; it’s about principle—protecting my identity and my name.”  

One person who should take heed of Jordan’s words? Current NBA phenom, Jeremy Lin, whose Chinese name was registered by a Chinese company back in 2010.

Watch Jordan's video statement

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Jordan sues for control of his name in China

You wouldn’t walk up to a co-worker’s cubicle and challenge him to do 25 sit-ups on a typical workday, but you might challenge him online if your company was using one of the new social media platforms designed to encourage employees to stay (or get) in shape.  Or you might find that challenge in your own inbox, or an offer to go for a bike ride after work.

A growing number of companies are banking on social media to boost the participation rates in their employee wellness programs. As it is, about 90 percent of companies (with more than 5,000 employees) use the web to deliver their wellness programs. For example, one employee wellness company, ShapeUp, has a Facebook-like platform, where people invite “friends” to participate, create “teams,” and can log their own fitness and weight control efforts and see how they’re doing compared to others in their company.

“The prime motivator is the social accountability we engender,” said Dr. Rajiv Kumar, founder and chief medical officer of ShapeUp. The “friends” can be a powerful motivating force, especially when everyone can see how much (or little) you’ve done each week.

“We believe this peer accountability, which is stronger than accountability to a faceless HR department, can be as powerful, if not more, than financial incentives,” Kumar said.

According to ShapeUp’s research, about 30 to 50 percent of employees at their client companies participate in their social media wellness program compared to, say, a typical walking program, for which 15 percent participate, or a weight loss program, for which about 8 percent partake.

Other studies explain why social media may help motivate people to exercise more or lose more weight. These studies show that peers have a big impact on your health behaviors. When people are losing weight around you, you’re more likely to lose weight, and when they’re quitting smoking, you’re more likely to quit too. But it can also go the opposite way - when they eat donuts, you’re likely to do that as well!   

ShapeUp makes fitness and nutrition challenges and the teams compete against each other to see who can walk the furthest (measured with pedometers), bike the most miles, lose the most weight, eat the healthiest, and do the most sit-ups. Employees log their efforts and accomplishments daily or weekly. If you don’t enter your log for a few days, you may get a friendly nudge from a teammate. On the other hand, when you run a 5K or simply go for a long walk, you might get a round of cyber high-fives from your teammates.

One of the best aspects of these social media wellness programs is that they are like Match.com for exercisers. You can crowd source a cycling partner, jogging buddy or someone to play tennis with.  If your company isn’t doing social media wellness, you can check out Fitocracy and Daily Mile, direct-to-consumer websites that use the same concept of social media to help people meet their fitness and nutritional challenges.

Laurie Tarkan is an award-winning health journalist whose work appears in the New York Times, among other national magazines and websites. She has authored several health books, including "Perfect Hormone Balance for Fertility." Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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How social networking can boost your workout

Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. (IDA) announces social networking tools and dental marketing strategies designed to find new patients and maximize dental practice marketing success.

(PRWEB) February 23, 2012

Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. (IDA) announces its new dental marketing strategy that allows doctors to meet prospective patients where they gather on the web. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and Yelp are the most popular way for people to ask their friends for recommendations and share information online. In response, IDA created dentist social networking tools that can be easily integrated with any social networking profiles that a dental practice may already have.

The success of social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Orkut, WordPress, LiveJournal, TypePad and others means that social networking tools need to be included in every dental practice marketing plan. However, successful social marketing requires maintaining an active presence, which can be overwhelming (or impossible) for busy doctors.

"That's why IDA designs customized dentist social networking strategies that are easy to implement. For example, websites and portals can be completely integrated into a dentist's personal or professional Facebook profile," says Jim Du Molin, dental patient marketing consultant and founder of Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. "Individual Facebook pages can be built for each market segment a doctor wants to target, including geographical locations, and specialties such as dental implants, braces & orthodontics, Invisalign ©, dentures and wisdom teeth."

Each dental website page is designed so that new patient prospects can be strategically sent to the practice’s social networking profile pages for social proof or more information. Twitter feeds and Yelp reviews are good sources for testimonials from existing patient. LinkedIn listings and YouTube playlists are good ways to provide more information about dental specialty areas such as cosmetic dentistry, orthodontics, periodontics or sleep apnea.

"Since most web visitors will have profiles on their own selection of social networking sites, displaying a variety of social networking tools on your dental practice website makes it easy for them to do some dental marketing for you," adds Du Molin. "Referrals are the most powerful kinds of advertising. Patients can spread the word to family and friends by email, or by using their own Facebook pages, blogs or other online networks they’ve joined."

Dental practice lead generation is an important online marketing strategy for increasing dental practice size, so New Patient Portals are designed to invite web visitors to share the information they find with their own online contacts. Each page is embedded with a selection of links, creating social networking and bookmarking opportunities for patients on hundreds of different sites. Since new social sites are constantly appearing on the web, the list is regularly updated to include the newest online destinations.

About Internet Dental Alliance, Inc.

IDA is North America's largest provider of websites for dentists, email patient newsletters and dental directories, and completed development of its unique LeadFire technology in 2012. Internet Dental Alliance provides dental practices with online dental marketing services such as websites and newsletters, find-a-dentist websites, and other dental management advice and resources.

###

Julie Frey
Internet Dental Alliance
888-476-4886
Email Information

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Dental Marketing Strategy: IDA Announces Dentist Social Networking Tools to Engage New Patients

It's a social network for people you haven't met yet, but it's not a dating site. Or so they say.

My welcoming committee on Badoo.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET. Faces and names blurred for privacy.)

There's a social network oozing into the U.S. that you probably haven't heard of yet: Badoo. I hadn't.

But this network has, I'm told, 130 million users around the world, with about 6 million in the U.S. How did that happen? And will it play in Peoria? Here's the story, in two parts.

Part 1: The high-minded theory
Badoo is a social site, but it's no Facebook. Where Facebook is the network of your friends (even if you define "friend" loosely), Badoo is a network for friends yet to be.

But neither is Badoo, strictly speaking, a dating service, according to CEO Andrey Andreev and CMO Jessica Powell. Rather, Badoo is designed to connect you to people nearby whom you don't yet know, for whatever purpose you like. As Powell says, it's like the offline world. "There's always the potential for flirting or dating, but along the way you might just make friends, or meet people you want to introduce your friends to."

Like Facebook, Badoo's design encourages people to keep coming back. "With a dating site, if you go there and are successful, you don't come back. In Badoo, you come back," says Powell.

Badoo is also a location-based social service. It's designed to help you find people nearby who share your interests, and there's a strong smartphone app. It's pitched as great if you're looking to hang with someone in a new city you're visiting, or connect with people at an event.

Powell told me that about 50 percent of the conversations on the service lead to real-world meetups, and that under 20 percent of the site's usage is around dating. These are both very interesting numbers for an online connection service.

I would say my conversation with Andreev and Powell went well. I was envisioning using Badoo to connect with cool people at crowded events like the Maker Faire, or maybe at industry conferences.

Then our meeting ended, and I tried the service.

Part 2: The low-down reality
The initial impression I got when I signed to the service: man, this is creepy. Immediately after signing on, with no photo or information in my profile, I was told that four women wanted to talk with me, one of whom was 382 miles away. Why? I was a blank box with nothing but an age and a location.

Use Badoo to find nearby people open to talking or meeting.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET. Faces and names blurred for privacy.)

Actually, the entire sign-on process tells you a different story than the one the CEO and CMO told me. This is a photo-based dating site. About the only question you need to answer to get active on the service is if you want to meet a girl or a guy (or both) and their age. There is no concept of groups or networks of friends. Even the part where you enter in interests, to match with other users, is relatively obscure.

Then there's the revenue model: the service is free, but only to a point. To be featured on the top of the site's or the app's navigation bar as a nearby contact, you have to buy credits. To activate "super powers" (which allow your messages to go to contacts more quickly, among other things), you either pay with credits or contacts: you can invite other users to Badoo and the service will check your social networks for matches if you authorize it to do so. Other features require payment, too, and you can't do much before you bump into pay-me blocks. Otherwise, you'll feel hemmed in.

A site that's similar in some ways, HowAboutWe, feels more platonic than Badoo. And HowAboutWe has very clear dating mission.

Badoo appears to be all about the hookup. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and it's a reasonable business to be in. There is, after all, one thing that people will always want, and one way or another, pay for.

And I do respect Powell's assertion that in Silicon Valley we tend to like the sterile, or as she put it, "desexified" product. Humans are needy, messy creatures, so why not build businesses that serve that reality?

The challenge is that if you have a sexy product, there's very little else that can bloom underneath it. Powell disagrees with this and said in an e-mail after we talked, "Dating only represents about 20 percent of how users make use of the site. I think Badoo is successful (far more so than dating sites, which are smaller) because it's not prescriptive. We give you the tools to meet people, then you decide what you want to do....I think most people go with some sort of 'romantic' hope, but along the way, they have all sorts of entertaining, flirty, and fun encounters."

I was also told, "Dating is a popular initial use case, and we expect the U.S. to follow the pattern of our other high-usage countries, where the uses broaden out over time and as the site scales."

My exposure to Badoo has been brief, but to me it seems like a gritty, real connection service, not the ongoing social experiment that I was eager to try before I experienced what it really was. Perhaps Badoo will expand beyond "flirting" in the U.S., but I can't imagine going back to it for anything but that.

Badoo raised $30 million from Russian investor group Finam in 2007. Powell told me the company has an annual run rate of $150 million, from about 1 million paying users every month.

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Badoo blazing a new path in social networking?

Home > News > health-news

Washington, Feb 22 : Immunising pregnant women against flu virus seems to ensure the birth of healthy and normal weight babies, says a new study.

The study, a randomized controlled trial involving 340 healthy pregnant women in Bangladesh in the third trimester, looked at the effect of immunization on babies born to vaccinated mothers.

It was part of the Mother's gift project looking at the safety and efficacy of pneumococcal and influenza vaccines in pregnant Bangladesh women, the Canadian Medical Association Journal reports.

"We found that immunization against influenza during pregnancy had a substantial effect on mean birth weight and the proportion of infants who were small for gestational age," writes Mark Steinhoff, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre, with coauthors.

"Our data suggest that the prevention of infection with seasonal influenza in pregnant women by vaccination can influence fetal growth," state the authors, according to a Cincinnati statement.

The women were divided into two groups, one with 170 women who received flu shots and the second who received the pneumococcal vaccine as a control.

Researchers compared the weight of babies born in two periods, one in which there was circulation of an flu virus and one with limited circulation. Babies small for their gestational age are at higher risk of health and other issues over their lives.

During the period with circulating flu virus, the mean birth weight was 3178 grams in the flu vaccine group and seven percent higher than 2978 gram in the control group. The rate of premature births was lower in the influenza vaccine group as well. (IANS)

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Flu shots ensure birth of healthy babies