Month: January 2006

During 2006, international daily Metro will start online editions in most of the 19 countries in which it is being distributed, according to Resumé. The first online edition will be launched in Sweden later this spring and three people will be hired to run it.

– The web will be completely different from the paper, says Sakari Pitkänen, editor in chief of Metro Sweden.

Metro will also launch new paper editions in at least 7 cities in the north of Sweden, starting January 23rd, reports Journalisten. A recruitment company have advertised for 10 distributors in Piteå and 20 in Luleå. Piteå-Tidningen reports that Metro also will be distributed in Gävle, Skellefteå, Sundsvall, Umeå and Örnsköldsvik, but Pitkänen refuses to comment on the paper’s expansion plans.

Technorati tags: Metro, media, newspapers.

Core Issues on why burying bad corporate news on Friday afternoons might not be such a good idea after all.

“Many experienced financial journalists, and savvy analysts and investors, have long known that some of the juiciest morsels of information cross the PR newswires and the SEC’s Edgar repository starting around 4:00 p.m. Eastern on Fridays.”

Via Media Orchard.

This is a neat example (update: link does no longer work) of how to get positive blog coverage for your company. PralinHuset is a purveyor of chocolates and noticed that one of Sweden’s more popular bloggers had a craving for chocolate, and decided to send her a present, a box of pralines, when she was sick. Of course, all companies can’t send gifts to every influential blogger (just send them to me, thanks) but this was done with consideration and had a connection to the targeted blogger.

Simply fabulous.

I thought this was kind of funny. Gawker writes about the James Frey controversy and illustrates the article with the book cover – in Swedish!

The file seems to be taken from here (http://www.bonnierfakta.se/bilder/nyheter/nyheter_frey.gif), considering its name.

Resumé reports this morning that TV4 will launch a tv blog on Monday at TV4.se, featuring its sports reporter and chronicler Patrick Ekwall. The blog will include both text and video files and the premiere will coincide with Sweden’s football team’s tour in the Middle East next week.

Technorati tags: tv, journalism, video blog, vlog.

Blocket is a leading online marketplace, a “Swedish eBay” if you will. In an interview in August last year, the Managing Director of Blocket said that “This year products for 100 billion kronor will be advertised at Blocket.”

This quote has turned into a corporate myth interpreted so that products worth 100 billion kronor were sold at Blocket. N24 writes that “products worth 100 million kronor are sold at Blocket each year”. DagensPS writes that “Blocket has a turnover of 100 milllion kronor”, and bloggers comment along the same lines. But that is not the case. I can put my summer house up for sale at Blocket for 1 million kronor, but if no-one buys it it will not add to Blocket’s turnover any more than if I had advertised my left sock, which no-one bought.

The myth is now back in the news, starting yesterday with N24 (they get it right later on in the article) and followed by bloggers here. As N24 notes, Blocket’s competitor Tradera actually sold goods worth 1 billion kronor last year, and it is very unlikely that Blocket is 100 times bigger.

To compare, H&M; are aiming at a turnover of 100 billion kronor in the near future.