Henrik Torstensson's Weblog

Northzone and Creandum invest in Spotify - confirmed

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:20:00 +0000

Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek has confirmed that venture capital firms Northzone Ventures and Creandum have invested in Spotify. No word on the amount invested or the valuation.

Spotify launched

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:13:00 +0000

Spotify has launched. Free version invitation-only. Premium version at 9 SEK/day or 99 SEK/month available for everyone. Press release.

"Spotify skriver licensavtal med sju internationella musikj�ttar och tillk�nnager lansering

STOCKHOLM, October 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Spotify ing�r idag avtal med en rad r�ttighetsinnehavare s� som Universal Music Group, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, Merlin, The Orchard och Bonnier Amigo. D�rmed kommer deras musikbibliotek bli tillg�ngliga f�r anv�ndare via den nya digitala musiktj�nsten Spotify. Spotifys unika teknik ger omedelbar tillg�ng till musiken via "on-demand streaming". Spotifys anv�ndare kan utan restriktioner s�ka och lyssna gratis p� musik fr�n en enorm musikkatalog best�ende av miljontals l�tar. De kan �ven skapa egna spellistor, dela spellistor och musik med andra anv�ndare samt utforska det stora musikbiblioteket genom en rad olika funktioner som �r skapade f�r att ge anv�ndarna en optimal musikupplevelse.

Spotify lanserar tj�nsten idag den 7 oktober 2008 i Sverige, Storbritannien, Tyskland, Frankrike, Italien, Spanien, Finland och Norge. Under de resterande m�naderna av 2008 och under 2009 planerar Spotify att rulla ut tj�nsten p� fler marknader.

Spotifys premiumtj�nst betalas via prenumerationsavgifter medan den kostnadsfria versionen �r reklamfinansierad. Anv�ndarna kommer �ven ha m�jlighet att k�pa ett "Day pass", vilket ger ett dygns reklamfri tillg�ng till tj�nsten. Bland annons�rerna i Spotify m�rks varum�rken som Ford, Xbox och Duracell. Ford i Sverige har �ven inlett ett samarbete med Spotify i samband med lanseringen av den nya Ford Fiesta.

Spotify har �ven inlett ett samarbete med Bredbandsbolaget som kommer att vara �terf�rs�ljare av premiumtj�nsten.

"Vi ska alltid ligga i framkant och d�rf�r �r det sj�lvklart f�r oss att vara med vid lanseringen av Spotify. Vi tittar hela tiden p� hur v�ra kunder kan anv�nda sitt bredband p� b�sta s�tt och en riktigt bra musiktj�nst �r en viktig del i det arbetet", s�ger Georgi Ganev, VD Bredbandsbolaget.

Daniel Ek, grundare och VD p� Spotify s�ger: "V�ra partners har varit otroligt engagerade och hj�lpt oss att driva utvecklingen av Spotify fram�t. Vi �r v�ldigt glada att de hj�lper oss att skapa en grym musiktj�nst f�r v�ra anv�ndare s� att vi kan f�rse dem den musik de vill ha, n�r och var de vill."

Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International kommenterar: "Prenumerationstj�nster med str�mmad musik �r framtiden f�r digital musikkonsumtion. Spotify ger anv�ndaren en fantastisk anv�ndarupplevelse och Universal Music Group International �r mycket n�jda med att vara en del av Spotifys lansering."

"Vi �r mycket glada att jobba tillsammans med Spotify d� de har utvecklat en unik musikplattform som kommer inneh�lla b�de en reklamfinansierad tj�nst och en premiumtj�nst", kommenterar Ulrich Jaerkel, Senior Vice President, Digital & New Business Development Europe, Sony BMG Music Entertainment. "Med ett s� l�ttnavigerat gr�nssnitt och stort utbud av funktioner s� har Spotify en lovande framtid hos dem som anv�nder digitala musiktj�nster."

Stefan Blom, SVP Commercial Development for EMI Music: "EMI st�der helhj�rtat innovativa och anv�ndarv�nliga musiktj�nster. Spotify erbjuder ett attraktivt s�tt att koppla ihop artister och deras fans. Anv�ndarnas f�r�ndrade musikvanor �r ett tydligt tecken p� att Spotify �r p� r�tt sp�r, d� anv�ndarna f�redrar modeller som ger omedelbar och laglig tillg�ng till v�ra artisters musik framf�r � la carte-tj�nster."

Leanne Sharman, Vice President, Business Development, Warner Music EMEA kommenterar: "Redan fr�n lansering �r Spotify en omfattande, flexibel och engagerande musikupplevelse. Genom att erbjuda bra alternativ i form av en annonsfinansierad tj�nst och en prenumerationstj�nst kommer plattformen ha ett starkt utg�ngsl�ge f�r att fostra en lojal anv�ndarbas samt attrahera annons�rer. Inte bara det, Spotify kommer att vara en m�ktig reklamplattform och ett s�tt f�r stora grupper musik�lskare att uppt�cka v�r imponerande katalog av artister."

Charles Caldas, CEO p� Merlin kommenterar: "Vi �r genuint entusiastiska �ver den fantastiska kvalit�n och noggrannheten som ligger bakom Spotify och av de innovativa aff�rsm�jligheterna som m�jligg�rs f�r v�ra medlemmar. Vi �r �ven mycket bel�tna med att Spotify snabbt ins�g v�rdet i Merlins katalog och att de har jobbat h�rt med oss f�r att se till att alla independentlabels som ing�r i v�rt n�tverk finns tillg�ngliga f�r anv�ndarna fr�n dag ett."

"Spotify s�ger: 'Alla �lskar musik.' Vi h�ller med och har d�rf�r sett till att v�ra tusentals artister fr�n hela v�rlden kan erbjuda sin musik via Spotify. Vi tror att en annonsfinansierad musiktj�nst med m�nga s�kfunktioner �r vad marknaden vill ha och vi �r �vertygade om att Spotify kommer generera fler fans till v�ra artister och bidra till att v�ra artister f�r betalt f�r sin musik", s�ger Greg Scholl, president och chief executive officer p� The Orchard.

Om Spotify

Spotify �r en innovativ musiktj�nst som erbjuder sina anv�ndare omedelbar tillg�ng till en v�rld av musik. Spotify erbjuder "on-demand streaming" av musik och syftar till att bli ett alternativ till piratnedladdning genom att erbjuda en b�ttre anv�ndarupplevelse. Spotify erbjuder b�de en premiumtj�nst som betalas via prenumerationsavgifter och en kostnadsfri version som �r reklamfinansierad.

Spotify g�r s� att fansen kommer n�rmare sina favoritartister och erbjuder en marknadsplats f�r ytterligare produkter s� som livekonserter, downloads och ringsignaler. "

The talk of the town...

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:31:00 +0000

... is obviously the rumored ?15 million investment in Spotify's at a post-money valuation of ?86.9 million. As no party is officially confirming the report, it is hard to say if all the specifics are correct. Even if some details are wrong, the amount doesn't sound that crazy given what Spotify are trying to accomplish (and the funding needed to do that), the track record of the founders and the previous absence of outside capital.

eBay acquires BillMeLater and dba.dk

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:17:00 +0000

Ebay has acquired BillMeLater, which I first heard about from Kreditor founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski about four years ago, for $945 million. BillMeLater and Kreditor provides somewhat similar services, making it easier for e-retailers to invoice their customers. One of BillMeLater's investors was Amazon.com. With the acquisition eBay is expanding its interest in online payments beyond Paypal.

Today eBay also bought Denmark's leading online classifieds site dba.dk for $383 million, handily beating the 365 million SEK price it paid for Tradera a few years back.

On investing, business and strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:48:00 +0000

Charlie Munger on the Art of Stock Picking. "And the wise o�nes bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they don't. It's just that simple." ... "How many insights do you need? Well, I'd argue: that you don't need many in a lifetime. If you look at Berkshire Hathaway and all of its accumulated billions, the top ten insights account for most of it. And that's with a very brilliant man Warren's a lot more able than I am and very disciplined devoting his lifetime to it. I don't mean to say that he's o�nly had ten insights. I'm just saying, that most of the money came from ten insights."

A Clover in Stockholm

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Good coffee is one of the luxuries of life, so consider this a public service announcement.

Coco Vaja on Norrtullsgatan 51 has a Clover machine ("At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee") for a few more days. Worth tasting.

And Non Solo Bar has new owner. The coffee is still good.

Surf on to some other places

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:18:00 +0000

ArcticStartup - blog on Nordic startups
Tane.li - blog by Finnish entrepreneur Taneli Tikka
Edge: THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS By Nassim Nicholas Taleb - on statistics by the author of The Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness

Bigger by the day, or not

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:09:00 +0000

Yesterday I went to the release party of Annonskartan.se, Ted Valentin's latest map project. Interesting idea, but it will be even more interesting to see if it can avoid the wrath of Blocket. Mapping is getting more interesting by the day (and the by the mobile devices used), but Blocket's strategic interest doesn't align with Ted's. Met some nice people (as usual) like Mjukvara's Christian Rudolf and N�tkoll's Gunnar Lindberg �rneby. And Gitta, Bj�rn, Bloggy-Jonas and VA-Micke (who thinks I'm getting bigger by the day), IW-Miriam and others.

Maybe not Genius, but pretty good

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:40:00 +0000

After a loooooong time I made my first purchase at the iTunes Music Store last Sunday night. Even though I primarily listen to music with Spotify, the Spotify beta hasn't contained recently released music and I wanted to get my hands on a few new songs.

By starting to use iTunes and iTMS I've started to get to know Genius, iTunes music recommendation service. Genius helps with discovery of new songs, which is making my experience better (of course Amazon has done this for ages, so it is not a new idea). It would be very interesting to see how Genius has affected user-behavior and sales. My guess is that Genius might have increased the spend by an average iTunes customer a few percentage points already and as it gets better it can probably reach a 10-20 % improvement (at least).

Genius is the kind of service improvement that can create a lot of value (for customers as well as the firm and its shareholders), but usually doesn't get the same media attention as a company acquiring another company.

Risky business

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:08:00 +0000

[via: WebMetricsGuru]

The investment banks funded 25 % of their balance sheets with overnight loans because it was much cheaper than taking on longer term debt. In addition the banks had massive leverage (around 3 % equity and 97 % debt), which made the firms fragile. When their assets (like mortgage-backed securities) turned out being worth much less than thought, it is not hard to understand why things turned very bad in a heartbeat.

Spotify invites

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:42:00 +0000

I've gotten a couple of new Spotify invites. If you want one, leave a comment or send me an e-mail. If there are more requests than invites I'm giving priority to close friends, blog and industry friends and people who give on Kiva in that order.

Update Oct 7: Unfortunately I'm currently out of invitations.

New Videoplaza web site

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:38:00 +0000

Videoplaza have a new web site and a clearer description of what they provide; an ad server for video. More on their blog on the new design and their new London adventures. (disclosure)

MyHeritage acquires Kindo

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:51:00 +0000

MyHeritage has acquired Kindo, a London-based family-tree site with among others Swedes Nils Hammar and Martin Sandberg in its team. Kindo about the deal in their blog.

A bailout does not make the recession go away

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:22:00 +0000

After Friday's stock rally on the U.S. bailout of bad loans held by U.S. financial institutions, stocks went down and oil prices rose today resulting in headlines like U.S. Stocks Tumble on Concern Bailout Won't Stop Recession. Looking back at the Swedish financial crisis of the early 90's, which as a percentage as GDP seems to be close to the current U.S., and the Japanese of the 90's, it should be pretty obvious that putting bad loans into government-owned entities don't make away with recessions. What getting the loans of banks' balance sheets can do is to get the banks to focus on current and future business, instead of being overly conservative with extending credit to shore up a horrible balance sheet. A short recession instead of a long-term dysfunctional financial sector is a good outcome from a bailout given the current circumstances.

The going away of easy credit for consumers, will likely continue to be a significant hit to consumer spending. The Big Picture had this very telling chart on how much GDP growth has been driven by mortgage equity withdrawals in the U.S. this side of 2001 already three years ago. With falling home prices and a credit crunch, mortgage equity withdrawal obviously is not an option any longer.

YGL actually does regulate digital media...

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:55:00 +0000

"- Till exempel sades det att vi br�t mot Yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen, men det �r inte applicerbar f�r den omfattar inte digitala medier." (Bengt Olsson, Telia). Well, YGL actually does regulate the digital media that is covered by YGL (which is far from all digital media, though). This specific case might not be a freedom of speech case where YGL applies, but that is another matter.

I'm not sure if I'm upset about Telia inserting advertising around the web pages its customers visit through Surf Open (the important point to me is if the ads are displayed separately from the content of the web page), but I don't agree with the opinion that the operators own the mobile display and can do with it what they want.

Weekend reading (ad ops, retention, vc, killer apps/platforms)

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:02:00 +0000

Mike On Ads: Can?t we all just 302? Report on redirect timings. "Why should you care? Well, latency matters. And not only from a "keep your users happy" perspective. Every additional 100ms of latency increases the likelihood that your user moves to another page, stop loading the page .. or in other words -> every 100ms of latency added is another subset of your users that are lost. ... So how are you redirecting over to your advertisers? Can we all please just 302?"

iMedia Connection: 5 ad operations disasters. "Here are some of the top disasters in ad operations and what you can do to avoid them."

The Long Tail: A passionate amateur almost always beats a bored professional. "Amateurs self-select for the job. Professionals are selected. For most jobs, volunteers beat draftees."

Futuristic Play: How to measure if users love your product using cohorts and revisit rates. I would argue that the single most telling metric for a great product is how many of them become dedicated, repeat users. This angle of thinking naturally leads to a number of metrics around user retention, which we?ll examine in this blog post. ... User retention is especially important for social web products. Failure to consider the backend retention of a userbase can lead to catastrophic results - in particular, without the proper mechanics in place, it's easy to hit the "shark fin" user curve, as well as the death spiral caused by reverse Metcalfe's Law. In both cases, once the core audience of a site starts to erode, then the erosion can cause a negative feedback loop that causes the entire audience to fall away."

Martin Spanar!: S� f�r du pengar fr�n Atlas Venture. "Ig�r skrev jag om Facebook Developer Garage och h�r kommer forts�ttningen. Det som jag tyckte var kv�llens h�jdpunkt var att lyssna och prata med Maximillian Niederhofer fr�n Atlas Venture." I really like the 'voice' Martin has found with his blog. Intellectual curiosity combined with hands-on perspective. A very good read.

iFundVC: Killer Platforms, Killer Apps. "1. The "first party" must be the Market Maker, as spokesperson, evangelizer and brand driver. No platforms succeeded when brand owners faltered. 2. Critical mass or die. 20 Million units sold has been the minimum US audience for a meaningful game machine. Pretty good start with the 3G!"

Size is relative

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:04:00 +0000

Having a coffee at Arlanda before boardig Finnair to Helsinki. I read, on Bloomberg I think, that banks and other financial institutions have lost or written off about $500 billion this year. That is more than the market capitalization of all public Internet companies. Size is relative...

Going to Helsinki

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:19:00 +0000

I'm going to Helsinki tomorrow afternoon to give a presentation at SIME Finland on Wedensday. If you want to meet up, get in touch.

Tech issues reason for no updates

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:12:00 +0000

Sorry for no updates for a while. Technical issues.

Stardoll on Adweek's 2008 Hot List

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:16:00 +0000

Adweek put Stardoll on their 2008 Hot List together with some familiar names:

THE '08 HOT LIST:
1. GOOGLE
2. FACEBOOK
3. IPHONE
4. HULU
5. GLAM
6. YOUTUBE
7. XBOX LIVE
8. THE HUFFINGTON POST
9. IMEEM
10. STARDOLL

Honored to be in such amazing company.

Blog birtday note and Sunday links

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:10:00 +0000

The blog turned six on September 4th and at the same time marked the first year of English-language blogging. Probably blogged a bit less than I planned in the last year, but that was not due to the language switch.

Bret: The Secret Behind the Popularity of Yahoo's Homepage. "Good games kill time. If you're really smart, you'll figure out that giving people something to enjoy can have just as much impact as giving them a better way to solve a problem. Here's a problem for you: everyone wants to be happy. Yet, most of the time, they aren't.
Games help with that. Does your startup?" Of course most entertainment (online or offline) is not advertising-supported.

A VC: The "Feedization" Of The Web (continued). "But think about the Facebook generation. My kids are growing up with the news feed as their start page. Not Yahoo's portal approach and NOT google's search box approach. In time, its entirely possible that feeds will be more powerful than search"

Umair: How to Chrome Your Industry . "Where is the Chrome in your strategy? What shared resource have you invested in - or should you invest in - to expand the pie sustainably for everyone over the long-run?

If the answer's "none," it's likely that you're living on borrowed time. Because Chrome is a textbook example of asymmetrical competition. You don't need to invest billions to disrupt industries with shared resources - a few million devoted to a handful of bright people will do. What Google did with Chrome, tomorrow's revolutionaries will inevitably begin doing across industries - that's why asymmetrical competition is so dangerous and so difficult to fight." How can you support open source projects that strengthens your firm's strategic position like Oracle, Google, SAP and others have done for quite some time in their industry?

Futuristic Play: Gaming versus gambling ARPUs. "Given that games and gambling go (somewhat) hand-in-hand, at least in terms of product and design, I?m curious what you might be able to learn in one that you could apply to the other. This is similar to the common belief that the techniques in the online direct response world all trace their roots in the adult industry." About $73 in monthly ARPU for Italian gamblers compared to about a $1 for sites like Habbo, Club Penguin and others.

Ads and humans

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Futuristic Play: Ad targeting talk from Community Next: People Not Pages: "Thus, for the publisher, the entire array of targeting technologies -
be it geo, behavioral, demographic, and other - are all about shoring up those remnant CPMs and converting those into near-premium pricing. For advertisers, it's all about driving higher efficiencies for gaining reach without dealing with the increasing fragmentation of audiences and meda."

Mindpark: Google Ad Manager (s� ska ett annonssystem fungera): "Google Ad Manager �r gratis (om vi inte s�tter v�rde p� den ytterligare insyn som Google skaffar sig;) ist�llet f�r de galopperande summor som vi betalar till de kommersiella leverant�rerna. Dessutom �r hanteringen av systemet mycket enklare, och jag r�knar kallt med att de sajter som idag sitter med flera lagera av traffic-tj�nster har mycket att vinna p� den h�r modellen. I princip kan s�ljare och producent, egentligen utan m�tbar tids�tg�ng, sj�lva hantera sina respektive delar av systemet."

VentureBeat: Developer Analytics: Facebook game Mob Wars making $22,000 a day: "Developer Analytics says it has created its equations based on real datapoints gathered by speaking with developers and advertisers. To determine the monetization potential of an app, it combines the amount an app can make from running banner advertising with the amount the app can make from companies like Offerpal and SuperRewards."

A VC: The Human Piece Of The Venture Equation: "I?ve learned that nothing can replace the entrepreneur?s passion and vision for the product and the company. If you rip that out of the company too early, you?ll lose your investment. I think it?s best to wait until the initial product has succeeded in obtaining a critical mass of users and a business model has been developed that works and make sense for the business and is scaling. Then, if its warranted, you can sit down and have the conversation about bringing in experienced management."

A VC: When You Wake Up Feeling Old: "I honestly don't relish the idea of being the VC who brings the experience piece to the equation. I like being on the cutting edge. So I am going to try even harder in the coming years to do that. And I will rely on this blog and all of you to keep me there."

Really?

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:41:00 +0000

"- Jag tycker det �r f�rf�rligt tr�kigt att Europa inte har kunnat f� fram ett enda stort internetprojekt. USA �r totalt dominerande, men jag tror vi egentligen �r b�ttre p� att f�rst� vad konsumenterna vill ha." Johan Sta�l von Holstein.

I take some issue with the statement that there has not been one big European Internet project. Unless you set the bar at Google, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon.com level (which is setting the bar really high), Johan Sta�l von Holstein is wrong (even though there is a much larger number of successful American Internet companies as Europeans have a tendency to sell to American corporations instead of either continue operating as independent companies or sell to European corporations). And if project shouldn't be read company, which isn't clear, the statement is rubbish.

The First 20 Million Is Always the Hardest

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:09:00 +0000

The headline is the title of a book by the author of one of my favorite books, but seems especially fitting today as Stardoll passed 20 million members.

Sunday reading

noreply@blogger.com (Henrik Torstensson) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:50:00 +0000

Bret on Social Games: Platforms are Driven By Hits - Kongregate's Brilliant Move. "I think DTD was Kongregate's tipping point. Feel free to disagree or just mock me in the comments." While being the dominant platform is the goal for many firms, you need killer applications (even if integrated into your product/platform as is common for web services) to get customers and users.

Martin Spanar!: Gr�v d�r du st�r - aff�rsmodeller fr�n puben. "Vi s�g oss omkring p� platsen d�r vi var p�, en sk�n pub. Denna plats �r kanske inte helt olik ett socialt n�tverk dit folk hade kommit f�r att interagera snarare �n vara konsumenter.

Vi f�rs�kte d�rf�r p� skoj som en fem-minuterstr�ning n�mna allt d�r pengar eller andra transaktioner �r inblandat - kanske kunde man kanske �vers�tta n�gon av dessa grejer till en aff�rsmodell p� Internet?"

Using a pub environment to think of business models for social networks is a highly relevant way to approach the issue.

Bronte Media: Lexicon. "The current debate over the role of speculators in oil pricing reminds me of Rep. Noah Sweat?s classic answer when asked in 1952 what he thought about whiskey:" click to read the entire quote