January 2007 – Page 4

MTG buys Sweden’s second largest online community

The international entertainment-broadcasting group Modern Times Group (MTG) buys 90% of the Swedish youth community Playahead for SEK 102 million (11 million euro).

“Playahead is Sweden´s second largest internet community, with over 530,000 members, and its Swedish operations generated more than 50% year on year revenue growth to SEK 18.2 (11.9) million for the nine months ended 30 September 2006.” […]

“Studies show that 12-24 year olds spend as much as a third of their media consuming time on the Internet, which is part of the reason why Internet advertising is forecast to deliver high double digit growth over the coming years in Scandinavia, and even higher levels of growth in the Eastern European markets. Scandinavia´s high internet and broadband penetration levels provide the perfect environment for the proliferation of user-generated video and audio content, as well as a full range of live chat, email, streaming and blogs,” says a press release from MTG.

Tags: social networking, communities, Playahead, MTG. Ping.

Corporate blog fight

It is not unusual to see bloggers who quarrel over an issue, but more rarely does this happen on the corporate level. Now we can read what might possibly be the first Swedish corporate blog fight, between two companies in the SEO business, Carnaby Solutions and MediaAnalys. One writes on his personal blog, the other on the corporate blog. Accusations and suit threats are thrown around and it’s a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion, it’s very ugly but it is hard not to look. To the detriment of both companies, of course. Hire a PR agency, guys.

[Via BetaAlfa 2.0]

Tags: corporate blog, pr, seo, bloggar, seo. Ping.

“Yo, Saddam”

Martin Jönsson at Svenska Dagbladet links to the VizEds Blog’s collection of how newspapers illustrated Saddam Hussein’s execution. And just like Martin, I reacted to Philadelphia Daily News’ headline “Yo, Saddam, say hi to Hitler”.

Tags: Saddam Hussein, newspapers, media. Ping.

Blog-nicking – a new sport for MSM?

A story from Wall Street Journal’s law blog is currently the third most read article on Realtid.se. How did they find it?

WSJ Law Blog, 3 Jan: The Longest Law-Firm Name Ever, Part II – a story about a law firm named after 10 partners.

Media Culpa, 4, Jan: “The longest law-firm name ever” My post about the law firm with the long name. Additional comment about how hard it must be for the firm to find a domain name that long.

Realtid.se, 5 Jan: Longest name on a law firm? (Längsta namnet på advokatbyrå?) Article about the law firm with the long name. Additional comment about how hard it must be for the firm to find a domain name that long.

Related: An article by Niklas Svensson, Politikerbloggen. [Via Erik Laakso.]

Tags: blawg, WSJ, media. Ping.