Editorsweblog writes about a new study from University of Southern California's Center for the digital future. It identifies ten trends that shape America's digital future:

1. In America, The Digital Divide Is Closing, But Is Not Yet Closed As New Divides Emerge

2. The Media Habits Of The Nation Have Changed, And Continue To Change

3. The Credibility Of The Internet Is Dropping

4. We Have Just Begun to See the Changes to Come in Buying Online

5. The "Geek-Nerd" Perception Of The Internet Is Dead

6. Privacy And Security: Concerns Remain, But The High Levels Are Changing

7. The Internet Has Become The Number One Source For Information For Internet Users

8. The Benefits and Drawbacks Of The Internet For Children Are Still Coming Into Focus.

9. E-mail: "E-Nuff" Already?

10. Broadband Will Change Everything - Again

Trend number three is somewhat worrying, but not surprising. From the press release: "most users trust information on the Web sites they visit regularly, and on pages created by established media and the government. The information that users don’t trust is on Web sites posted by individuals."

What conclusion can we make from this regarding for example blogs? I guess that blogs still can be considered credible, since you find your favourites that you read on a regular basis and you trust these sites, while you need to have a sceptical approach to blogs you are not familiar with.

Deutsche Welle has taken on the gargantuan task of selecting the world's best blogs. The Swedish edition of InternetWorld did a halfhearted attempt a year ago to list the 5 best bloggers in Sweden, and in my opinion at least two of them don't belong on that list (any longer).

Since the Swedish blogosphere has developed rapidly during 2004, I think it is time to introduce a proper award. The award should be presented by InternetWorld, or even better, marketing pubs Resumé or Dagens Media, which would show that blogs are not just geek stuff anymore, but a real communications channel for individuals as well as for polticians, corporates and organizations.

Then divide the award into several different categories like "best private blog", "best professional blog", "best design" and "scoop of the year". That would hopefully accelerate the pace at which blogs are spreading through Sweden. The blogosphere could need a push. In my opinion Sweden is lagging behind other countries in terms of blog acceptance. Since when did we become such IT laggards?

Tobias Billström of Moderaterna (the Swedish Moderate Party) has introduced a bill that the webpage of the Swedish Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) should be equipped with a blogging function in order to develop and improve the information on the webpage.

He writes:
"Blogging in riksdagen.se should be a natural thing" and points first and foremost to matters that are published on the webpage like notes, press releases and questions.

Do you now realize that blogs are going mainstream?

Sidenote: the Moderate party should at least have RSS-enabled its pressroom, then this bill would have been more credible.

While I am writing about music, I thought I'd try out Rox Populi's Friday Random Ten (a day late, I know). As Rox says: If you haven't done it before, pull out your iPod or MP3-player. Set it on random play and list the first ten songs you get. Here are mine:

1. True Love - Aquanote
2. Real Love - Drizabone
3. Meet Me At The Pier - Doves
4. Lovely head - Goldfrapp
5. Digital love - Daft Punk
6. Cactus - Pixies
7. Novocaine For The Soul - Eels
8. P-machinery - Propaganda
9. Truth - Dwele
10. Can I Get A Witness - Marvin Gaye

A lot of love there. Anyway, now it's your turn, either on your own blog or below in the comments.

I'm officially a dinosaur, a species destined for extinction, i.e. a fan of the Blue Nile. I went to two record stores yesterday to buy their new CD "High" and got the response "The Blue Nine? Uh huh, the Blue Nile, no we're not selling it". I thought this was a market economy and wherever there is a demand, it would be met.

Anyway, I read this blog post from a Blue Nile fan who got upset with the copy protection of this album, since he wanted to rip it to his iPod. So he sent an email to the record company complaining about the whole thing:

And they replied first thing yesterday morning, saying that it was a cockup by the manufacturers, and they would replace the CD, and please send my address.

so I did, and this morning arrived a new copy, and a complimentary copy of the single. They didn't even ask for the original, or proof or purchase.

Now that's good PR.

One of the greatest bands on the planet is back with a new album after 8 years. No, I don't mean Europe. I'm talking about Scottish lo fi heroes the Blue Nile who are back with a new album called High. I can't wait to get my hands on it. The Blue Nile has been one of my favourite bands since their debut album A Walk Across The Rooftops was released in 1984, courtesy of hi-fi company Linn Electronics (!). They're the perfect band (I imagine) when you've been dumped by your girl and have to walk home alone through Glasgow in the rain.

If you haven't discovered this lovely melancholic band, who bring out new albums at glacial speed - only 4 albums in 20 years, let me recommend some songs. Here's my top five:

1. Downtown lights (Hats)
2. Tinseltown in the rain (A Walk Across The Rooftops)
3. Wish me well (b-side on Happiness CD single 2)
4. Heatwave (A Walk Across The Rooftops)
5. From a late night train (Hats)

It is time for big media to give credit to non-traditional media and blogs (and each other) when they re-write stories. Here is a current example. Last Saturday, Dagens Nyheter had a short piece about the possibility that a programmer at SL (Stockholm Transport) had hidden a code in the journey planner on www.sl.se with the effect that a search between the stations "dödsknark" (death drugs) and "dödlig mat" (deadly food) would result in a trip from McDonald's to McDonald's.

This story was published on IT publication Computer Sweden's webpage on Sept 13, but DN made no reference to the source. And it turns out that the story was originally (?) posted on Sept 11 on the web site Buzz, run by internet consultants Bazooka. Computer Sweden made no reference to the source, i.e. Buzz. And there's just no way that these two papers can have come up with this story without reading Buzz, or getting a tip of course (but a search on Google for "dödsknark" and "dödlig mat" links directly to Buzz). So either they've left out the source on purpose, or they just haven't searched the web for the story.

Today, in the era of participatory journalism, a fine way of turning the grassroots against you is to nick their stories without giving credit. Eventually this has to stop. An idea is worth as much, no matter who came up with it.

Weird fact #1: this wasn't a conspiracy from a programmer, but an unexpected feature on the web site, which suggest names of stations if you type in the wrong name. A search on terms like "smuggelsprit", the web site suggest station "Sergels Torg". More examples on IDG.se.

Weird fact #2: Bazooka, who runs Buzz, recently finished working on the website of the Swedish Union of Journalists.

Blogs are steadily going mainstream in the Nordic countries. Media articles about blogs sky rocketed in Sweden in August and to some extent in Norway, much thanks to "Rathergate". The numbers for September are pointing in the same direction. (Stats via search on Retriever)

The publishing company Ordfront who publishes Sweden’s largest cultural magazine: Ordfront magasin is also an association with over 30,000 members, committed to the defense of democracy and human rights. Yesterday, Ordfront announced on its webpage that it has started a blog as a temporary solution until they have a "proper" forum in place for discussions. The blog will only be available to members.

A recent survey of the Public Relations industry in Norway shows that:

>81 per cent of employees at PR agencies have an education at university level
>Most common educational background: Social studies or arts - 26 per cent, Business administration - 21 per cent, Journalism - 18 per cent
>Recruiting: 34 per cent from another PR agency, 25 per cent from private companies, 14 per cent from media.
>A third of the employees are mainly working with strategic counseling.
>Lobbying has grown from 5 per cent of the agencies' turnover in 2002, to 11 per cent in 2004.
>The average agency loses a third of its clients every year.

PRSA writes about Global PR Blog Week in the September issue of its e-newsletter. (Link via Corporate Engagement)

On a related matter, I was interviewed for a long article about blogs in the Swedish marketing publication Dagens Media on August 25, along with Tove Lifvendahl from JKL and Mark Comerford, lecturer in new media at the Department of Journalism, Media & Communication at Stockholm University. Unfortunately I haven't been able to convice Dagens Media to publish the article online.

Mark Hughes has written a book about "the phenomenon of buzz, brands that get buzz, why, and the six secrets of buzz marketing for brands and celebrities alike". He wants help with naming the book, and I found this a clever way to start a buzz about this book. Sadly his web site contains nothing else but this page, so I think he misses a great opportunity to give more information.

Via Adrants.

If you ever doubted that RSS is going mainstream, here is another proof that it is. Poynter reports that the Firefox web browser will integrate "RSS feeds as "Live Bookmarks," so folks who browse the Web with the bookmark sidebar open can have headlines displayed in that familiar context. Firefox also supports one-click RSS feed subscriptions if the website embeds a link tag in the head of the HTML document."

Apple has previously announced RSS support directly in the Safari Web browser. How long before Microsoft will include RSS in Internet Explorer? Maybe they already are. Anyone who knows?

Dagens Nyheter is currently the target of a campaign from an organization "dedicated to fighting anti-Israel "bias" in the media", because of a controversial cartoon by Hans Lindström published last Saturday. An organization called HonestReporting is urging its members to send protests to Dagens Nyheter's reader ombudsman (it would be interesting to hear how many emails she has recieved). The story has been noticed by Andrew Sullivan and several others.

The Guardian recieved the same treatment in 2001, and you can read the paper's response here.

How is a person supposed to know what is true or not, these days? The so called media watchdog HonestReporting has gotten another watchdog watching the watchdog, namely HonestReporting.org. I must admit I haven't had time to read all the contents on these web sites, but HonestReporting.org claims that HonestReporting.com might not be that honest after all. Are you still following...?

I'm so not going to get in the middle of this, but I can understand that the cartoon above resulted in a protest storm, and I shudder at the thought of reactions to this one from the same cartoonist (UPDATE: There is now a different cartoon if you follow this link).

UPDATE: Dagens Nyheters reader ombudsman did actually receive a huge number of emails regarding the cartoon. Her respons here (in Swedish).

Is astroturfing an ethical method for promoting an opinion or influencing a political decision? No, if you are a believer in "new PR" and transparency. Yes, if you are working for Burson-Marsteller or some of the other PR agencies in Norway that willingly serve clients a fake grassroots campaign, as long as they pay the bill.

Claus Sonberg, Managing Director of Burson-Marsteller in Norway tells local marketing publication Propaganda that "our international knowledge database contains 89 such projects", referring to the infamous Swift Boat Veterans For Truth campaign against John Kerry. Sonberg says that BM for example succesfully helped organize "Women behind the wheel", a seemingly cross-political movement against higher taxes on new cars. In reality the organization was sponsored by car importers.

Inge Olav Fure at Konsensus PR agency says:
- I don't see any big problems with starting up an organization for a specific purpose, as long as you don't lie about who's behind it.

Well, not lying about something is not quite the same as telling the truth up front. If it looks like an organizaion of female drivers who are concerned with high car prices, then you're faking it, even if you don't lie about it.

In the same article Fure says that it is not the agency's problem if people don't realize there is a PR agency behind a message, it is media's problem. But that hardly counts as addressing the real issue, who is paying the PR agency?

It happens now and then, that after a night of light snow in Stockholm, the mailbox outside my house is empty in the morning. No Dagens Nyheter. Well, tonight DN seems to have been caught by a digital snow storm, the web site is down.

Swedish libertarians (nyliberaler) seem to be embracing blogs as a vehicle for opinion building, I have mentioned numerous examples before. Tobias Henriksson, who heads Muf in Gävle, yesterday started a blog called Nyliberal.se. See his first post here, where he writes a libertarian manifesto about abolishing income taxes and compulsory school attendance among other things (!).

If you are the owner of one of the most well-know brands on the planet, you wouldn't want the brand to degenerate and become a generic term. But that is what is happening at warp speed for DaimlerChrysler's classic brand Jeep, at least here in Sweden.

There is a big debate in Sweden about SUV's and, among other things, whether they should be taxed harder for excessive fuel consumption. At the same time Volvo launches a V8-model of its SUV Volvo XC 90, which fuels the debate on the necessity of these vehicles.

Problem is that the term SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) doesn't sit well with Swedes, so most people use the term "stadsjeep" (city jeep). A quick search in the media archives shows 1250 articles using the term "stadsjeep", since 2002. All major media outlets use this term. Even official communication from insurance companies, governmental organizations and environmental movements use the term.

And a new survey by Bil Sweden today also shows that SUV's are predominantly not bought by people in the city, so the term city jeep makes little sense.

So what can you do? You can't blame Volvo, they call it an SUV. And the Jeep website is just filled with the registrered trademark symbol ®, so they've got that part covered. Can you hold media accountable for diluting your brand? Probably not. Media can lean on the freedom of the press act.

But you can, and should:

> continue to inform media that Jeep is a registered trademark until they realize that they are infringing on a company's (immaterial) assets.
> help media coin a suitable term instead of SUV. No ideas yourself? Maybe the blogosphere can come up with a few suggestions?
> On top of that I would write to the news agency TT who publish recommendations to media in using the Swedish language and ask them to recommend against using "stadsjeep". TT already wrote two years ago that a SUV in Sweden should be called suvbil (SUV car) but that "it has already become a standard practice to call them stadsjeepar (city jeeps)".

The story about plagiarism in Dagens Nyheter has engaged the Swedish part of the blogosphere this fall. Although the Peter Borgström case is not entirely identical to the Jayson Blair story, I find this very interesting. Appearently, the infamous Blair is cashing in on his "fame" and charges $3,000 for an appearance at the mass communications department at Winston-Salem State University (a "portion" of this honorarium will go to a mental health organization).

Will Borgström appear at JMK? Not a chance. But maybe he should.

Via Rhetorica.