Online magazine, BrandChannel, has voted the Arabic news channel, Aljazeera as one of the world’s top five brands. Apple takes the top slot, beating Google, last year’s winner, with IKEA and Starbucks completing the top five.

While Aljazeera is certainly influential, and has made big strides to improve its English content over the last year, I’m not certain it has a definable ‘brand’, nor that it can reasonably be classed above such heavy-weights as Coca-Cola, Nokia and Virgin. Do we think it will be there next year? I feel this is a bit like the latest American Idol/Pop Idol star being voted into one of the Best Songs of All Time charts – just top of mind voting, rather than reasoned analysis.