Jaiku, the microblogging site, has been down during the last five days due to server issues and a move to the Google data center. Five days is an enternity for a site like Jaiku and it has given us users some serious abstinence. We've gotten used to sharing ideas with each other, giving tips and discussing different topics. Without Jaiku the discussion tried to move elsewhere to places like FriendFeed or Twitter, but it wasn't really the same thing.

When Jaiku now is back online it has opened up to everyone. Previously you had to get an invite, which were limited, by an existing user. Now there are unlimited invites so anyone can register. It will be interesting to see if the discussion among my existing friends will pick up on the same level as last week and if we will see an onrush of new users. If so, will Jaiku be able to handle the increase in traffic?

Footnote: You will find me here on Jaiku.

Tags: jaiku, bloggar, jaiku. Ping.

The Norwegian newspaper VG today introduced Twingly's blog links, according to NRK Beta (which has a screen shot). With Twingly, newspapers display blogs that link to articles online. Other examples are Dagbladet in Norway, and several Swedish papers, such as Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet.

Tags: norway, bloggar, twingly. Ping.

Consumers today are more individualistic than previous generations and that's one reason why you see teenagers (and we who think we still are) pimp their mobile phones and iPods to get that unique look. Who wants to look like everyone else? While some may argue that people are individualistic in pretty much the same way, facts remain, consumers are spending more and more money on customizing everything from Xbox 360 consoles to sneakers.

With such a demand among consumers, many companies could differentiate themselves against competitors by offering so-called mass customization solutions that enable each customer to tailor a product with a unique design. A recent example are Swedish banks that have started to promote personalized payment cards. Their customers can upload a picture of their choice on the bank's website (or choose one from an online gallery) to design a unique personal credit card.

Swedbank was the first Swedish bank to offer personalized payment cards when they launched Kort på Kort (Photo on Card) a year ago. A little odd though that it initially was limited to grown ups! One would have guessed it to be the other way around, considering the motivations of the different age groups. The cost is 100 kronor for a new card.

Handelsbanken and SEB seem to be using Gemalto's CardLikeMe, an external web service which offers some flexibility when it comes to adjusting the photo. Handelsbanken charges 123 kronor (and 85 kronor for renewal card) while SEB charges 95 kronor.



From what I can see, the fourth large Swedish bank Nordea doesn't offer personalized payment cards in Sweden, but they do in Finland, also via CardLikeMe. This of course makes Nordea look dull and uncool in comparison to the other big three.

Banks are not known for giving you something for nothing and since most of them buy the service from an outside supplier one shouldn't expect this service to be free. We also know that consumers often are willing to pay a price premium for customization, so the strategy may be right. But in a more competetive market there might be room for a smaller player to include personalization without cost in order to present a more attractive offer to new customers.

Advantages of mass customization are many. In the case of personalized payment cards, you will increase customer loyalty because the customer is more likely to stay with the bank to be able to use the same card (renewal is often free). You get a higher degree of involvement with the product because the card user will be proud to display the unique card and therefore inclined to use it more often (vs. cash). It is also a source of additional revenue for the bank since the cost for a unique card is higher than for the 'plain vanilla' version.

Expect to see more companies offer customization solutions as printing technology and other means of production evolve. What really boring products would you like to pimp?

Tags: banks, customization, banker, swedbank, pengar, seb. Ping.

In his bestselling book The Long Tail, Chris Anderson writes that the U.S. is a country obsessed with watching top lists, a culture which basically is one big popularity contest. In many aspects, Sweden is not much different. Bloggers like to compete and just this morning I had to check my ranking among Europe's top marketing bloggers (#49 based on traffic) so I'm as guilty as the next guy. In other words, it is not surprising that when a blog or newspaper rank high on a list, they want to share that information with others. But the least you can ask for is that the 'bragging' is based on the truth.

I probably shouldn't have given this article any attention, but it is hard to resist. The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet today writes that one of their blogs is the most visited Swedish fashion blog.

"Sofi writes the largest Swedish fashion blog."

That can only be true if you don't consider Blondinbella, Kenza and Stina-Lee's blogs to be fashion blogs. All three, by most people and themselves labelled fashion blogs, have more visitors than Aftonbladet's Sofi Fahrman.



Much can be said about the editiorial quality of blogs, but today a couple of teenage girls are more accurate than one of the largest Swedish mainstream media.

Footnote: Numbers in the graph are from Bloggportalen.se and states the number of visits per IP address and hour during the last 7 days.

Tags: fashion blog, fashion, blondinbella, kenza, bloggar, mode. Ping.

Life is hard when Twitter is down. Via NRK Beta.



Tags: twitter, humour, microblogging, twitter, humor. Ping.

With the explosion of social media sites it is inevitable that some doesn't make it. GigaOm now reports that the social music site Social.fm has gone out of business. Another venture funded social media site that has closed down is Thoof, a social news-ranking site, reports Digital Media Wire.

Tags: social media, music, musik, media. Ping.

More and more businesses and organizations are on Twitter, the micro-blogging site. Fluent Simplicity has a long list of brands on Twitter. My employer, Burson-Marsteller, is not on the list but can be found on http://twitter.com/bmdigital. I can also add NRK and GCI Communique, both from Norway.

So, who's on Jaiku? Let's create a list, I suspect it will be pretty short. This is what I've got so far. Add more in the comments or by email.

Media
Aftonbladet: http://aftonbladet.jaiku.com/
Expressen: http://expressen.jaiku.com/
Sydsvenskan: http://sydsvenskan.jaiku.com/

Tags: twitter, brands, microblogging, twitter, jaiku. Ping.

Here are two stories about social bookmarking that migh be worth sharing:

- Problogger gets banned and unbanned from StumbleUpon. Maybe it was just his email that got him unbanned in less than two hours, but the responses from social media friends via Twitter, Plurk, Digg and email probably also helped.

- del.icio.us launches new faster version of the site with better search and new design. The site also now redirects you from for example del.icio.us/kullin to delicious.com/kullin which seems a bit unnecessary, but maybe they've finally realized that the original domain was too complicated. You need to log on to your account again in order to save links, which might be a problem for users that don't remember their password. Another downside with the new design is that you don't see all your tags on the screen without scrolling, but apart from that the new design looks good.

Tags: social bookmarking, delicious, stumbleupon, sociala medier. Ping.