Editor's Blog: Ranking everything

I noticed a story this morning about the favourite brands in the UK. It wasn't dominated by big tech and internet names - think Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook. Nor was it the usual run-down you see in brand equity league tables - Coca-Cola, Levi's, that type of thing.

No, number one was Aston Martin. That's right, a struggling car marque - who owns it these days? - that every James Bond aficionado should love.

And that deep affection, stimulated by the recent resurgence of the car in the last Bond movie, was cited as the reason for it hitting the number one spot.

Much as you might think I'm a fan of all things tech - and generally I am - it kind of feels right to me that something as sexy as a Bond brand has come top. Search engines are great but they just don't push the same buttons, as it were.

Here's a final question. If this list (see grey box below) considered green credentials, who'd come out top? I'm thinking probably not the car-maker, the airline or the tech companies, which either churn out hardware or need a fair bit of juice to power servers and the like.

That's right, let's hear it for the underwear company.

The Superbrands top 10

1. Aston Martin
2. iPod
3. YouTube
4. Bang & Olufsen
5. Google
6. Sony PlayStation
7. Apple
8. Agent Provocateur
9. Nintendo
10. Virgin Atlantic

Still on the subject of top 10s, yesterday I chaired silicon.com's eighth annual Agenda Setters panel, the day when a dozen or more experts convene to try to settle on the 50 most influential individuals in the high-tech world. And that's not easy.

Our full special report comes out at the start of October and over eight years we've never had a repeat winner. Past number ones include Ray Ozzie (now at Microsoft), Ashley Highfield (BBC), Eric Schmidt (Google), Steve Jobs, Rupert Murdoch, Chris Gent (Vodafone) and former AOL top dog Steve Case - remember him?

Will keep you posted. One participant, three or four years back, described the whole project as a "game". It wasn't an insult. I have to agree with him. And it's a fun game, too, one that makes us think.

One last item from me, as I stay on the subject of lists and comparisons. Excuse me if this bores some of you but the issue of broadband performance is never without views. I'm working from home today and have compared my download/upload speeds over a home PC and a work laptop, both connected by Ethernet cables to the same router - rather than wi-fi, in the laptop's case, which I know would be slower.

With a theoretical maximum download speed of, ahem, 20Mbps, on a home desktop I record almost 13Mbps - while my work machine, operating over a VPN, comes in at just 3Mbps.

I use www.speedtest.net for these comparisons and I'd recommend it. Just shows what a hit on performance some types of security can have. I don't mind too much, in this case, though things like secure websites (the old 'https') slowing to a crawl can be annoying.

And trust me, there is a reason for having two machines turned on at once.