Stina Honkamaa new Managing Director of Google Sweden

Fredrik Wass writes that Stina Honkamaa, managing director of Carat Sweden, will switch jobs to become the managing director of Google Sweden from the end of January 2008.

Not putting their money in Internet companies anyway

According to Svenska Riskkapitalföreningen (Swedish Venture Capital Association) Swedish venture capitalists invested 74 million SEK in 11 Internet technology companies in the second quarter of 2007. That is $1 million and change for each company.

To understand how litte that is, consider that Benchmark Capital alone put $8 million (about 50 million SEK) into Power Challenge in early May.

Update October 27th: A good friend who spoke to a few Swedish tech VCs about the number told me that the VCs, based on the their own investments, say the 74 million SEK number is too low.

Internet conferences in Sweden

Internet-related conferences in Sweden this fall.

Sep 26: Webbdagarna Göteborg
Oct 23-24: Webbdagarna Stockholm
Oct 29-30: Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit (Stockholm)
Oct 31 - Nov 1: Search Marketing Expo (Stockholm)
Nov 14-15: SIME07 (Stockholm)
Nov 27: Disruptive Media: Sociala Medier för Kommunikatörer (Stockholm)
Nov 28-29: Internet Marketing Conference (Stockholm)

Money, money, money and mobile

A cold and rainy Sunday afternoon in Stockholm is a perfect time to expand on and link to some of the things that caught my eye in the second half of the week.

Ed Sims points at something central for Internet companies in his post The constant battle between revenue and usability. The problem is, of course, that there is no how-to guide to help with the specific design decisions an individual company has to make. But getting those decisions right are likely the biggest drivers of revenue and profitability for media and community sites.

Five of the more profitable local Swedish newspaper owners have set up a common development company (business and tech) called Mindpark. Even though such partnerships generally have had a tough time making it big, maybe with CareerBuilder as the exception, I will keep an eye on Mindpark as Joakim Jardenberg will be running the show.

The latest research from Strategy Analytics points out that online gaming is a bigger category than both online music and online movies at a value of US$4 billion.

As the Internet is getting more prevalent in our mobile phones, spending the next few years as product owner for mobile Internet at 3 Scandinavia could be interesting. Last day to apply is September 23rd. I have no idea if 3 is the right company to be at, but I think the mobile Internet area is the right one to spend time in.