Each year about this time something happens. My mailbox is a little fuller and the mail lady has to carry a bit more in her arms. Some of this is accounted for by the online purchasing of goods, some due to the increased junk mail touting HUGE after Thanksgiving sales, but the additional mail I look forward to comes in small colorful envelopes. It might be just me, but I enjoy Christmas cards. I’ve been fortunate, I guess, to have incredibly talented family and friends that deliver these amazing little cards year after year.

The past few weeks I’ve started to notice something new. It’s not the paintings of Santa Claus and Rudolph splashed on the side of every department store window, or the lights that were hung days and weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong, those are eventful and this is by far my favorite time of year.

What I’m referring to is the up and coming “mini-brand”. There seem to be an awful lot of these little guys showing up, names like WaMu, BevMo, PacSun and AmEx. This isn’t a new phenomena, brands like Orchard Supply Hardware, Kentucky Fried Chicken Kitchen Fresh Chicken and Bank of America have learned to shorten their names (OSH, KFC and BofA) for years. What’s odd about this new breed of mini-brands is how absurd they seem, its as if someone at the board meeting said “Oh crap, we don’t have a name that we can abbreviate, lets just takeout some letters and try to get it down to 4-5 obscure characters.”

Over the last few days I have linked to several iPhone apps and websites related to apps. This is an enjoyable time of exploration and discovery in the app business. People are looking at Apple’s decision to allow 3rd party apps to come through Safari as an opportunity instead of simply criticizing it (although  many  have). We are starting to see some interesting things percolate to the top: apps for News, RSS, Chat, Socializing, Movies, etc. It reminds me a lot of the very first weeks after widgets became mainstream in OS X.