The bad boy of Italian football, Marco Materazzi, continues to profit on the now legendary headbutt by Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final. The fabulous Nike commercial where Materazzi stops just about anything that bangs against his chest, has been watched almost 250,000 times on YouTube. That commercial is also followed by a superb series of Nike ads with the Italian World Champions, found here.

The copy text supposedly is translated "Materazzi Cupboards. World leading solidity tested for headbutts."

Tags: advertising, Nike, materazzi, zidane, headbutt, reklam. Ping.

My blog has not been accessible all day due to service maintenance at Spray/Lycos, according to an error message that greeted visitors this morning:

"Due to an operation of maintenance on servers, site is temporary unavailable.

Thanks for your patience!"

My simple response to this is:

1. Don't assume that I'm patient. To the contrary. Some 8 hours of downtime is not acceptable.
2. Some kind of prior notice would have been polite, so that I could take appropriate measures like for example setting my Google Adwords ad campaign on pause.
3. Are you planning on reimbursing me by extending my current subscription with one day (or ideally more than one day)?

Tags: lycos, blogs, bloggar, spray. Ping.

Matthew Hurst is Director of Science and Innovation at Nielsen BuzzMetrics. He has produced this magnificent graphic of the blogosphere. The two bright dots represent Boing Boing and Engadget.

Found via Niall Cook.

Tags: blogosphere, blogs, bloggar, bloggosfären. Ping.

Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet today launches a blog search portal called Bloggsök.se. But the domain with the letter "ö" is not working, at least not on my computer. Normally the Swedish letters å,ä and ö are replaced by a and o in domain names, but nowadays it is also possible to register domains with å,ä and ö. What you usually do then is, just like Aftonbladet has done, to register both bloggsok.se and bloggsök.se. Sigge, you better check this out.

Tags: blog search, blogs, Aftonbladet, bloggar, bloggosfären. Ping.

Several bloggers, including me, have reacted to sexist ads from Radisson SAS hotels. The ads had slogans like "It's easy to sleep with the best in Scandinavia" and "Can you say no?", accompanied by photos of a seductive woman on a bed. Now ERK, the ethical board against sexually discriminative advertising, has brought its verdict that these ads are discriminative and insulting to women in general, and therefore breaking the ICC rules for advertising.

"Den aktuella kampanjen objektifierar enligt rådet kvinnor genom att den koppling som finns mellan bilden av en kvinna eller en man och rubriken. Anspelningen på prostituerade är enligt rådet klar och annonserna ger vid en hastig blick bilden av att det är kvinnan som betraktaren skall eller kan sova med. Härigenom förmedlar annonserna ett budskap som är kränkande och därmed diskriminerande för både män och kvinnor i allmänhet. Annonserna strider därför mot ICC:s grundregler för reklam."

In its statement the board says that the ads allude to prostitutes. The ad in question can be seen here.

Via Martin Jönsson and Bisonblog.

Tags: advertising, sexist, reklam. Ping.

On February 15, 2006 I discovered that the photo sharing site Flickr had reached 100 million hosted photos. Today at 11.18 PM CET, only seven months later, Flickr passed the quarter billion mark - 250 million photos.

Unfortunately the photo number 250,000,000 is private. I was very close in getting the selected number, only seven photos away.

Tags: Flickr, photo, bloggar, bloggosfären. Ping.

This one almost escaped me. Aftonbladet today has a two-page article about my blog survey that indicates that women are now in majority among Swedish bloggers.

Tags: surveys, blogs, bloggar, bloggosfären. Ping.

Regarding this post, I have to ask what on earth "compuntoe" is? It is currently the second most popular search term at Technorati, but the word doesn't seem to exist at all. Technorati shows only one blog post that is not referring to the Technorati stats, and a Google search turns up zero results so it is hard to believe that this word is the second most used search term at Technorati.

"Compuntoes" on the other hand gives us 44,000 Google hits.

Update: Thanks to the commenters we now know that this is part of an SEO challenge that will finish on 1st of February. "Compuntoes" is com dot es in Spanish. More info in Spanish here. This does not, however, explain why there are so many searches at Technorati for "compuntoe" and not "compuntoes".

Tags: Technorati, compuntoe, compuntoes, seo, bloggar. Ping.

It is always interesting to analyze your blog to see how well it performs and what areas you can improve. I stumbled on this tool that measures a site's Page Strength, based on a number of parameters. Apparently I'm doing something right because Media Culpa gets 5.5 out of 10 with this comment:

"Your site is having an impact and may even be a leader in your field (depending on how big or small that field is). Keep on this path; it's clear that the effort you've put in is producing results."

Other popular blogs' results:
- Adland: 5.5
- Media Orchard: 5
- Mymarkup: 5

Worth noting that each of these four examples are all #1 in Google for the first four words of title tag on target URL, so choosing a unique name for you blog pays off.

Tags: seo, blogs, bloggar. Ping.

The Thai goverment is currently facing a military coup in Bangkok and tanks have moved into position round the Government House. It is hard to decide the level of seriousness from the media reports so far. But already there are photos up at Flickr from tonight's events in Thailand, for example this photo set called "coup in Thailand" and this series of photos tagged "coup".

People are quickly turning to untraditional sources for information. Already, "Thailand" is the fifth most popular blog search at Technorati (after Compuntoe, Lindsay Lohan, Teacher and the Pope).

Tags: Thailand, military coup, coup, Thailand, kupp. Ping.

As reported yesterday, a number of press people will have to leave their jobs in the Swedish government as a result of Sunday's election. On the other hand, industry experts estimate that there is a need for 200 political secretaries, press contacts and other posts with people primarily to be rectuited from media and public relations.

Tags: PR, Swedish election, val2006, PR. Ping.

35-year old Anousheh Ansari payed en estimated $20m to become the first female space tourist. Yesterday she boarded a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that will take her on a 10-day trip to visit the International Space Station. As Neville Hobson noted, she has promised to write the first blog from space. Here is Ms Ansari's blog.

Tags: space, Anousheh Ansari, bloggar, rymden. Ping.

So Sweden yesterday voted for the right-wing alliance and Fredrik Reinfeldt as our next Prime Minister. Yes, balding men, born in the 60s, who have three kids, drive Chrysler Voyager and live in Täby are really popular these days (I'm quoted in Dagens Industri this morning, not online though...). Dagens Media has the list of 25 PR/press people who as of this morning are out of work (or at least not will be at the same job as last Friday).

Update: I'm quoted in Slate this morning but I think the author missed that my comment was an ironic reference to the similarities between the new Prime Minister and the author of this blog.

Tags: PR, val2006, PR. Ping.

Swedish marketing weekly Dagens Media [not online] has done a survey among 50 marketing managers on large companies in Sweden, about how they rate different communications channels. They got to grade their willingness to invest in "untraditional" marketing channels from 1 to 7, the later figure representing the largest interest. Blogs are at the very bottom along with viral marketing (figures for 2005 in brackets).

Market PR 5.4 (5.3)
PR/lobbying 5.2 (5.1)
Internet advertising 5.0 (4.8)
Events 4.9 (4.8)
Search engine advertising 4.6 (3.8)
Email 4.1 (3.9)
Sponsoring 4.0 (3.8)
Action marketing 3.8 (3.6)
Advertorials 3.7 (3.1)
Web tv 3.4 (2.8)
3g/sms/mms 3.3 (2.6)
Own tv productions 2.8 (2.9)
Blogs 2.7 (-)
Viral marketing 2.7 (2.2)

It's hardly a surprise that blogs rate low if you look at it from an advertising perspective. Marketing managers are sensitive to the environment in which their brand will be exposed and blogs are by nature difficult to evaluate unless you are very good at cherry-picking. But blog advertising can be inexpensive and have higher click-through rate than other online campaigns. A successful example is how Audi generated 85% of its traffic with the 15% of the overall budget it spent on blog advertising, during the Art of the Heist campaing.

Besides, investing in blogs can of course also include setting up your own corporate blogs. Instead, advertorials are on the rise [shudder] among Swedish marketing managers.

An interesting comparison can be made with this survey of US ad executives by the American Advertising Federation. The respondents "generally have a more positive view of user-generated content sites, like Myspace, YouTube and Facebook, than blogs":

• While 24% have advertised on a blog and 7% plan to do so in the next year, 19% have advertised on a user-generated content site, and 14% plan to do so in the next year
• Blogs are considered to be relatively riskier than user-generated content sites, with 62% agreeing with the statement that “blogs are too risky to advertised with due to lack of predictability of the editorial environment,” and 53% agreeing with the same statement about user generated content
• 76% were concerned about “the ability to control brand/product image” on blogs, as opposed to 67% for user-generated content sites
• While 70% said that blogs are “useful for niche advertising, but will not have an effect on major accounts,” only 41% agreed with the statement when applied to user-generated content sites
• 91% said that advertisers “should exploit the viral marketing opportunities” of user-generated content sites, while 81% said the same of blogs

In my recent survey (pdf) of 700 Swedish blog readers, 34.2% said that they had ever clicked on an advert on a blog. With better targeting to niche blogs and more knowledge about creative execution, this share should rise.



Tags: pr, corporate blogs, public relations, advertising, blogs, viral marketing, sponsoring, reklam, PR. Ping.

Today:

Dagens Nyheter: The gap between left and right has increased.

Dagens Industri: The gap between left and right has decreased.

Tags: opinion polls, politik, val2006. Ping.

This is an interesting placement of an advert on Expressen.se today. The ad is for broadband and the banner is edge to edge with a photo, accompanying an article about a new alleged hacker attack against the Social Democratic Party. I can't make up my mind whether this is good or bad for the advertiser. At first I thought the banner and the photo were the actual advert. Then again, I did in fact notice the ad. What do you think?



Tags: advertising, politik, SSU, val2006, reklam, dataintrång, Ping.

Lookalikes of the day. Big Bird and a robber who dressed up in a purple children's sweater and peeked out the arm. On 8 June he tried to rob a Stockholm office of the Swedish Cashier Service, only to find that the staff found him so ridiculous that they all started laughing. He threatend the staff with a knife shaped like a banana (!) but had to leave the office empty handed.



Tags: robbers, big bird, humour, humor, Ping.

Månhus Beta reports about the launch of free daily City in Malmö and Lund in southern Sweden. The paper which previously was only distributed in Stockholm, was yesterday launched in Göteborg and in Malmö/Lund. The logo of City in Stockholm includes the profile of the city landmark sports arena Globen (the globe). That would probably not sit well with the locals in Sweden's second and third largest cities so the logo was simply stripped of the dots that represent the windows of the arena. Something like this (my interpretation):




Månhus Beta has photo evidence.

Tags: media, logo, city, media. Ping.

If you're not conviced that wikis are in fashion, maybe this will change your mind. The domain name wiki.com was recently sold for a cool $3 million. John Gotts who bought the domain explains his plans in Red Herring.

"With wiki I think there’s a massively fast-growing market, and there’s no easy tool for people to create their own wiki. If I own wiki.com, I could allow everyone to get their own real estate."

By the way, does anyone think that Jan Guillou reads his entry in the Swedish wiki Susning.nu?

Via Recruiting.com.

Tags: wiki, domain names, wiki. Ping.

In August this year, the Swedish writer Jan Guillou was invited as opening speaker at the annual HBT festival Stockholm Pride. This caused writer Unni Drougge to lash out against the choice of Guillou, who she meant had never done anything to support the HBT community. In a column in Expressen she claimed that Guillou is an advocate for a stereotypical macho culture who has expressed that homosexuality is just "a fad".

When faced with these accusations from Drougge in a tv interview Jan Guillou simply responded:

"She just wants publicity for her new book."

Well, Guillou is a clever man. In September, Drougge launched her first new book in three years - "Penetrering". Coincidence? Maybe.

But it takes one to know one. Guillou has been a frequent trouble-maker when it has suited his interests. In April 2001 he critized the Swedish female journalist Kattis Ahlström for making "pretend interviews", speaking baby talk and being a part of a bimbofied Swedish television. This naturally stirred up an intense debate and Guillou was in focus in many papers. As it happened, he launched his book "Arvet efter Arn" about a month later. Coincidence? Maybe.

That's why I can't be terribly upset when I read that Guillou yesterday dismissed the entire blogosphere as babble.

"Who cares about anonymous people's babble and poor notes?" he said.

And naturally a large number of bloggers come out in defence of blogs and to condemn Guillou as an elitist technophobe. Don't do that. It's easy to suspect that this is just a publicicy stunt. His new book "Madame Terror" came out a month ago.

Tags: Blogs, Public Relations, bloggar, Guillou. Ping.

Don't you just hate improvements that aren't really improvements? Sometimes companies are so eager to make a change, they forget that things that work properly might be better off as they were. A few examples:

Blogger.com has changed the front page and added an extra link in order to log in.



This is how it used to look.



In the old version the cursor was placed in the "username" box by default but in the new version you have to click "Sign in to Blogger" to get to that position. Now, say that Blogger has about 5 million users that log on twice a week. Hey presto, we have now created 10 million unnecessary clicks per week!

Second example. The Swedish portal Spray redesigned its site recently and moved the order of the boxes. If you use the tab key to move between boxes, like I do, you notice that the drop down meny where you can choose what to log on to, is now after the login button ("Ja"). That means that if I use the tab key to log on, I will not be able to go directly to my mail inbox like I used to and I need one extra click to get where I want.



Third example. Kungsörnen is a Swedish producer of, among other things, pasta. A while back they change the size of the pasta cartons into this incredibly tall but slim box. Problem is, that it is too high to fit the shelves in most Swedish kitchens. How can you design a product that is impossible to store? You don't store an opened box lying down.



These examples aren't huge problems, but consumers aren't that loyal these days so a small impairment might be what pushes some to switch to another supplier.

PS. It freaks me out when I google stuff, and find my own blog popping up among the top results, like here.

Tags: Blogger, design, bloggar. Ping.

Journalist (and blogger) Andreas Ekström writes a call for action to his colleagues in Journalisten.

"The blogosphere? They really hate us out there. Really. They are incredibly fed up with us. Do you know that, you who don't read blogs? Have you any idea how much we get beaten?"

I don't know if it's that bad. But I come to think of a song that I believe could be the theme song for bloggers, especially the media watchdogs: Morrissey's "The more you ignore me, the closer I get":

The more you ignore me
The closer I get
Youre wasting your time
The more you ignore me
The closer I get
Youre wasting your time

I will be
In the bar
With my head
On the bar
I am now
A central part
Of your minds landscape
Whether you care
Or do not
Yeah, Ive made up your mind

The more you ignore me
The closer I get
Youre wasting your time
The more you ignore me
The closer I get
Youre wasting your time

Beware !
I bear more grudges
Than lonely high court judges
When you sleep
I will creep
Into your thoughts
Like a bad debt
That you cant pay
Take the easy way
And give in
Yeah, and let me in
Oh, let me in
Oh let me ...
Oh, let me in
Its war
Its war...[continued]

Tags: blogs, music, lyrics, musik, bloggar. Ping.