IDG tracks blog comments with Twingly

The IT publishing house IDG has started to publish links to blogs that comment on their online articles. IDG is using the Twingly service that the two dailies Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet have been using for a couple of months.

– It is important for us to become more active in the blogosphere, which is an important part of the new media landscape, says Lisa Bjerre who is responsible for the initiative at IDG.

Update: Webbsnack notices that there is a new feature where it shows the RSS feed of the blog if you drag the mouse over the link. Pretty neat. See more here.

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Social networks a top news source for young people

WAN, the World Association of Newspapers, have published phase two of a research project about youth media behavior. The study, titled “Youth Media DNA” is a result of interviews with young people in 10 countries, among them Sweden.

Feedback from the respondents:

“…indicate that the importance of the social network as a disseminator of news and information is on the rise. Many participants in this phase listed “discussion with friends” as a top source for news and information, sometimes ranking higher than TV or newspapers. In particular, social networks appear to be key in spreading entertainment news for most young people.”

About user generated content, the study suggests:

“While most participants do not view video sharing sites like YouTube or blogs as credible first sources for news, many participants see them as channels for voicing opinion. In this sense, social networking and user-generated content sites can be seen as complements to their news and information experience.”

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YouTube to open up nine international sites

YouTube yesterday launched local sites in nine countries: Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. The video site will also be adding sites in more countries within the coming months. The domain www.youtube.se was registered on June 4, 2007 so if that’s any indication Sweden might be up next.

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Metro pays bloggers per page view

It’s been awfully quiet here for a while. I’ve been busy with some other things (like being interviewed about blogs by Svenska Dagbladet) and my broadband connection crashed for a week or so. But the blogosphere doesn’t stand still just because I’m offline. Today, for example, we could see the launch of Metrobloggen, a new blog tool where the free daily Metro offers its hosted bloggers 3 öre (about half a US cent) per page view. If your blog becomes a hit you might actually earn a buck or two.

But there are some caveats of course. Page views are counted on a monthly basis, but the numbers aren’t aggregated. The lowest limit is 150 kronor, which means that you need to have at least 5,000 page views per month to get anything. 4,999 views and you get zilch.

Bloggers aren’t allowed to publish any other ads on their blogs. And by signing up you also give Metro permission to use anything you write and publish it without giving you compensation. Aftonbladet has the same terms of service, by the way. Personally I prefer to own the stuff I write.

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Sweden opens virtual embassy in Second Life

Sweden yesterday opened an embassy in the virtual world Second Life. The initiative to open a virtual embassy, first announced in January, has resulted in massive positive publicity around the world, although quite a few news outlets noticed that Sweden was beaten by the Maldives by one week. A quick search results in 130+ international articles the last week, so the 400,000 kronor that it cost to build the digital mansion was money well spent.

The Second House of Sweden, is a copy of the embassy building, House of Sweden, located in Washington, D.C. It was inaugurated yesterday by Sweden’s blogging Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who’s avatar had some trouble navigating during the ceremony.

“There’s a question of finding the place,” Bildt said, as he crashed the online version of himself into a tree.

Bildt also sent a friendly greeting to Sweden’s neighbours:

“I expect to be invited to the opening of the Norwegian embassy in a couple of decades.”

Footnote: Photos and more at Sweden.se.

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