It really is amazing how many thousands of links there are to Richard Branson online. I’ve been experimenting with new ways of finding and sorting the best of these links, but the sheer volume is pretty unmanageable. So, if you see a link worth mentioning here, by all means, drop us an email at editors @ this site name. For today’s batch of briefly branson, we’ve got music celebrities, celebrities named John, and a little bit of Virgin branding.  

There were a veritable cornucopia of celebrities in attendance on Monday when Peter Gabriel was honored with the Music Industry Trusts’ Award.

Those paying tribute to Gabriel, who began his career with Genesis before becoming a successful solo artist, included U2’s Bono, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and film director Martin Scorsese.

Gabriel, 54, received his award Monday in a ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. It was presented by Richard Branson, who signed Gabriel to his then-label Virgin Records in the 1970s.

And speaking of music celebrities, many sites have the news that Britney Spears has asked for British hypnotherapist Allen Carr’s help to quit smoking. "Previous stars to give up smoking using Carr’s methods include actress Julie Christie, actor Anthony Hopkins and business tycoon Richard Branson."

A rising intellectual celebrity (or at least he should be), our friend John Robb validates our choice of Sir Richard as "an excellent choice." Thanks John! Also linking to us was John @ the Virgin Brand blog, who, by the way, amazingly managed to get Virgin Electronics (accidentally) linking to him as an official Virgin Group blog.   Very cool.

And finally, speaking of branding, the Strategy, Innovation, Futures BusinessBlog has an insightful post about Virgin Galactic’s success as an extension of the existing Virgin brand:

It is in these new areas that brand extension can work. We’re more likely to buy a space ride from VirginGalatic than we are from the makers of SpaceShipOne directly, because we have confidence in their offering — perhaps running space flights will be like running aircraft and perhaps it won’t. But we trust the Virgin brand, for safety, reliability and service in this new area. And this same thinking can be applied to other new trends too. Just by acknowledging a trend, your brand can help make it real. Which is of course, a double-edged sword. But at least its an innovative edge.