Henrik Torstensson's Weblog

Twittering

2008-11-28T00:11:00.001+01:00

I just got myself a Twitter account at twitter.com/henrikt.

Always look on the bright side of life

2008-11-25T22:47:00.002+01:00

Monty Python's decision to create an offical YouTube channel is hardly revolutionary, but is a good first step in a business-centered approach to the fact that Monty Python video clips will be available online. And quite inline with the principles of Kevin Kelly's Better than free article from January.

On a somewhat related note, Atlantic Records is the first (?) label among the four major music groups to make more than 50 % of its revenue from digital (downloads and ring tones). For most media companies, the share of revenues from digital operations is still between 5 and 20 percent.

Timing is important

2008-11-24T00:08:00.003+01:00

Financial Times didn't have perfect timing when it made this weekend's edition of How to spend it, the newspaper's magazine on expensive consumption, a special celebration edition. I wonder what they are celebrating. =)

The music keeps on playing, part 2

2008-11-23T23:04:00.002+01:00

Shy of a month ago, I posted my then current Spotify playlist and invited all readers to participate in creating a collaborative playlist. The collaborative list introduced some new music to me, which was kind of the point. I've created a new collaborative playlist and seeded it with three songs (bonus point for finding the common denominator for the songs), please add more songs!

Sunday reading

2008-11-23T22:47:00.002+01:00

Futuristic Play: Video up from Virtual Goods Summit, Metrics for Virtual Goods Businesses: The Whirled Case Study. My favorite blogger Andrew Chen and Three Rings CEO Daniel James giving a really good talk. Watch it. One point Andrew makes, which would be a good comment to the first paragraph of this post by Judith, is that CPM/CPA/CPC is not important except the difference in risk.

Webbstrategi.se: Kejsarens nya kläder. "Kontentan är att man vid webbanalys måste se helheten för att undvika suboptimering. När man blandar in kr och ören är det lätt att man drar förhastade beslut. Att använda tid som fördelningsnyckel är ett sätt att försöka ge en mer holistisk bild och passar en del och inte andra." Pretty long post by Robert Sahlin. Worth reading if you acquire customers online.

The Equity Kicker: Firefox?s billionth add-on download shows the power of extensible platforms. Seems like the browser, in some senses, is making the OS a set of device drivers (the quality level of the debugging I'll let some else comment on).

Searchblog: IAB: Online Is Still Pretty Healthy, But.... Online ad growth was flat, at best, the first three quarters of this year (and it was in October a.k.a. Q4 the shit really hit the fan with regards to the economy).

If you're going to Bangkok or Thailand

2008-11-23T20:25:00.003+01:00

If the worsening economy hasn't made you cancel your trip to Thailand, you should check out my good friend Kristian's guides to Bangkok (sv) and Thailand (sv). Definitely quality guides and not lightweight SEO stuff.

Just Blog

2008-11-23T19:46:00.003+01:00

Miriam had a blogging crisis (sv) after friends began asking her questions like Who are you blogging for? and What is the purpose of the blog?

I think her inclination to 'just' write about things of interest to her is a good one as the best blogs are more driven by the blogger's willingness to say something interesting than a desire to make the audience happy. Personally, the tricky thing for me with blogging the last year has been to find a good tempo (i.e. interval between blog posts) for blogging, resulting in quite some time in-between original posts as it is very easy not to blog once you started to blog less.

Videoplaza launches admin interface and third-party tracking

2008-11-23T17:46:00.002+01:00

The team at Videoplaza has launched a nice looking admin interface and third-party tracking of campaigns for their video adserver. As a board member it is great to see the product improve in ways that make the customers' lives easier.

Good investment advice in stormy times

2008-11-23T14:17:00.006+01:00

The savings and investment advice in Avanza's latest advertising campaign is really good in its simplicity. One does not need to be a customer of Avanza to take their advice.

Best Site Idea award from InternetWorld

2008-11-16T00:56:00.002+01:00

Swedish Internetworld has placed Stardoll 9th on the magazine's Topp 100 list and given Stardoll special recognition for Best Site Idea 2008. Massive thanks for the recognition and the kind words!

I'd agree that it was a really good idea back in late 2005 when we started transforming what was then Paperdoll Heaven into today's Stardoll. However, after 3 years of work the saying that it is about the execution rings very true to me.

80 % paying for IRC-Galleria

2008-11-07T18:41:00.002+01:00

Futuristic Play: What would Facebook look like if it sold out to ads? Click here to see.... "The point is, advertisers are used to buying something very specific - they want IAB standard ad unit sizes, they?d like to do homepage takeovers and roadblocks, etc. And of course these are units that Facebook does not emphasize in their ad revenue process, because they are often annoying and obtrusive. Again, let's take a look at ths mockup with the Facebook homepage covered with ads for the next James Bond movie."

Tane.li: IRC-Galleria remains the most active social media on the net. "How many of their registered users pay money for any of the services on the site? As many as over 80%. This number is significantly higher than any other conversion rate in any service I have heard of. I challenge you to find a service that would be "free, paying is optional" that would have a conversion rate higher than that anywhere in the world." Amazing percentage of paying members.

Bronte Media: Closest to the Decision Point Wins. "At the moment, current consensus seems to be that search will fare better and display will be hit hardest. But my problem with that is that it divides the Internet into two very broad categories: search and everything else (display).

What is a better framework for judging how different parts of display will fare? I have mostly seen by format (banner vs text vs video etc.) but again format is a very crude way of looking at things and does not correlate to gains and losses.

A better measure is some sort of behavioral index. With the consumer searching for 'asbestos cancer lawyer' on Google at index 100 to a group of High School girls chatting about life on Meebo at 0." A much better way of thinking about advertising spend than search vs display.

Lightspeed: Tips on A:B testing. "Some nuggets of goodness culled from the paper in no particular order (some sound obvious but read the paper to get more context). It will take you 20 minutes and you?ll use the lessons you learn for years"

Strategic implications

2008-11-03T23:02:00.000+01:00

Futuristic Play: Virtual items design: Build it yourself or use UGC?. "At the end of the day, I'm of the mind that the best way to become a platform is to build a great application. If you're successful, other people will want to build on top of you and you?ll become a platform whether you want to (a la Facebook) or not (a la MySpace). Setting out to be a platform from day one (and that's what I think Linden and others have done) is just a much harder road. But it you make it work, you avoid all of the retrofit problems that happen when applications need to rework themselves to be platforms."

HipMojo: 20 Dumb Things About Web 2.0. "Much the same way that loose money and easy credit created the real estate and housing bubble, open source software and cheap hardware created an environment of over-supply of me-too products that have absolutely no bargaining power in M&A or fundraising."

Anek.com: Framtiden kanske inte var helt gratis ändå. "Det är i detta läge världens onlineaktörer börjar damma av sina gamla planer om att ta betalt från kunden. Man börjar inse att om man levererar verkligt värde till kunden så är kunden villig att betala. Och det blir också en trygghet att massan av kunder inte är så nojiga och labila som annonsörer."

Andie's Log: The importance of iTunes for the iPhone success. "Apple claims they?ve ?re-invented the phone?, but that reinvention I?d say is more about the natural connection to the computer than the functionality of the device itself. The OS, interface and touch controls are fabulous, but just like with the iPod a lot of people don?t seem to understand the importance of connecting the mobile device with limited functionality to a full computer desktop environment where it can be managed and connected to the important data that lives there."

Bret on Social Games: A Case for Cloning Games. "To sum up: cloning is necessary to serve the audience. In large markets, clones enlarge the served market, rather than cannibalize it. So to not clone, would not only be stupid, it'd be a disservice to the market."

It is not about being the most frugal

2008-10-27T23:38:00.003+01:00

Martin tips everyone about his colleague Gareth's 21 page PDF Building a Startup you Love is Hard. Very good stuff. Read it. Via Gareth's del.ico.us I re-found some classic reading in Sequoia's Elements of Sustainable Companies. Worth re-reading to remind oneself of the fact that the goal is not to be the most frugal company during the downturn, but to build a company that survives and keeps the ability to thrive when the market starts to boom again.

Don't rejoice the recession

2008-10-27T00:31:00.003+01:00

A couple of Swedish tech bloggers blogged about the recession this Saturday. I didn't, but cannot help myself from leaving a short comment. The recession is likely to be pretty bad and give Generation Y a new outlook on work-life. The balance of power is switching to the employer and changing jobs will be more difficult. And there are few things that will make longer-term issues fade quicker than a bad economy. Nothing new nor will it be permanent, but focus will change for the next year or two.

A roundup of links to the participating bloggers' posts can be found at Judith's blog.

Don't stop believing

2008-10-27T00:20:00.004+01:00

The business cycle shouldn't stop people from going on vacation and have a fun time (didn't find an embeddable clip), so there is no reason to whine about the timing of the video. Bonus points for the song's title as it captures the essence of startup life.

The music keeps on playing

2008-10-27T00:13:00.002+01:00

Playing around with Spotify is fun, and sharing is even funnier.

My Spotify playlist fall 2008. A mix of current hits and some older songs.

Feel free to put good songs in the torstensson collaborative playlist.

On the road

2008-10-23T19:23:00.003+02:00

Or more specifically on a train on my way to my grandfather's (farfar) funeral. Don't forget what is truly important in life and take care of your family and friends.

Social Media Morning

2008-10-17T17:54:00.001+02:00

xkcd

Focus on what you can affect

2008-10-11T18:36:00.004+02:00

There is currently no lack of doom and gloom, with Sequoia Capital's R.I.P. Good Times presentation being a prime example of that sentiment. No individual or Internet company will fix the credit crisis or stop a recession, but there still are things that to a large extent can be controlled like keeping focus on the things and metrics that drive the business.

Lost Garden: Rules of Productivity Presentation . "How do we get more work done? It is a question that every manager and every passionate worker faces. Yet, for the most part, teams operate on gut instinct and habit. The results are less than optimal."

Lightspeed Venture Partners: Usability testing slows down launch but speeds up success. "The most striking truth of the curve is that zero users give zero insights."

Lightspeed Venture Partners: Seven ways to boost your click through rates 25-50%. "Marketing Sherpa notes seven design elements to add to your banner ads to increase click through rates from 25-50%"

Startonomics. "Startonomics is a one-day workshop designed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs on how to create simple, actionable metrics; and how to use them to make better product and marketing decisions for long-term growth and startup success."

Omniture: Optimization Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts: "If you are in the process of testing today, I?d strongly advocate setting up segments so you can begin to see which ones behave differently. Targeting is a natural extension of testing, but don?t forget to go back and test your hunches as well, whether they apply to one segment or all of your traffic. Taking action on your data is the best way to do more with less, a strategy we will all have to follow more closely through the immediate future."

Northzone and Creandum invest in Spotify - confirmed

2008-10-07T22:20:00.003+02:00

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

2008-10-07T09:13:00.003+02:00

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 musikjättar och tillkännager lansering

STOCKHOLM, October 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Spotify ingår idag avtal med en rad rättighetsinnehavare så som Universal Music Group, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, Merlin, The Orchard och Bonnier Amigo. Därmed kommer deras musikbibliotek bli tillgängliga för användare via den nya digitala musiktjänsten Spotify. Spotifys unika teknik ger omedelbar tillgång till musiken via "on-demand streaming". Spotifys användare kan utan restriktioner söka och lyssna gratis på musik från en enorm musikkatalog bestående av miljontals låtar. De kan även skapa egna spellistor, dela spellistor och musik med andra användare samt utforska det stora musikbiblioteket genom en rad olika funktioner som är skapade för att ge användarna en optimal musikupplevelse.

Spotify lanserar tjänsten idag den 7 oktober 2008 i Sverige, Storbritannien, Tyskland, Frankrike, Italien, Spanien, Finland och Norge. Under de resterande månaderna av 2008 och under 2009 planerar Spotify att rulla ut tjänsten på fler marknader.

Spotifys premiumtjänst betalas via prenumerationsavgifter medan den kostnadsfria versionen är reklamfinansierad. Användarna kommer även ha möjlighet att köpa ett "Day pass", vilket ger ett dygns reklamfri tillgång till tjänsten. Bland annonsörerna i Spotify märks varumärken som Ford, Xbox och Duracell. Ford i Sverige har även inlett ett samarbete med Spotify i samband med lanseringen av den nya Ford Fiesta.

Spotify har även inlett ett samarbete med Bredbandsbolaget som kommer att vara återförsäljare av premiumtjänsten.

"Vi ska alltid ligga i framkant och därför är det självklart för oss att vara med vid lanseringen av Spotify. Vi tittar hela tiden på hur våra kunder kan använda sitt bredband på bästa sätt och en riktigt bra musiktjänst är en viktig del i det arbetet", säger Georgi Ganev, VD Bredbandsbolaget.

Daniel Ek, grundare och VD på Spotify säger: "Våra partners har varit otroligt engagerade och hjälpt oss att driva utvecklingen av Spotify framåt. Vi är väldigt glada att de hjälper oss att skapa en grym musiktjänst för våra användare så att vi kan förse dem den musik de vill ha, när och var de vill."

Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International kommenterar: "Prenumerationstjänster med strömmad musik är framtiden för digital musikkonsumtion. Spotify ger användaren en fantastisk användarupplevelse och Universal Music Group International är mycket nöjda med att vara en del av Spotifys lansering."

"Vi är mycket glada att jobba tillsammans med Spotify då de har utvecklat en unik musikplattform som kommer innehålla både en reklamfinansierad tjänst och en premiumtjänst", kommenterar Ulrich Jaerkel, Senior Vice President, Digital & New Business Development Europe, Sony BMG Music Entertainment. "Med ett så lättnavigerat gränssnitt och stort utbud av funktioner så har Spotify en lovande framtid hos dem som använder digitala musiktjänster."

Stefan Blom, SVP Commercial Development for EMI Music: "EMI stöder helhjärtat innovativa och användarvänliga musiktjänster. Spotify erbjuder ett attraktivt sätt att koppla ihop artister och deras fans. Användarnas förändrade musikvanor är ett tydligt tecken på att Spotify är på rätt spår, då användarna föredrar modeller som ger omedelbar och laglig tillgång till våra artisters musik framför à la carte-tjänster."

Leanne Sharman, Vice President, Business Development, Warner Music EMEA kommenterar: "Redan från lansering är Spotify en omfattande, flexibel och engagerande musikupplevelse. Genom att erbjuda bra alternativ i form av en annonsfinansierad tjänst och en prenumerationstjänst kommer plattformen ha ett starkt utgångsläge för att fostra en lojal användarbas samt attrahera annonsörer. Inte bara det, Spotify kommer att vara en mäktig reklamplattform och ett sätt för stora grupper musikälskare att upptäcka vår imponerande katalog av artister."

Charles Caldas, CEO på Merlin kommenterar: "Vi är genuint entusiastiska över den fantastiska kvalitén och noggrannheten som ligger bakom Spotify och av de innovativa affärsmöjligheterna som möjliggörs för våra medlemmar. Vi är även mycket belåtna med att Spotify snabbt insåg värdet i Merlins katalog och att de har jobbat hårt med oss för att se till att alla independentlabels som ingår i vårt nätverk finns tillgängliga för användarna från dag ett."

"Spotify säger: 'Alla älskar musik.' Vi håller med och har därför sett till att våra tusentals artister från hela världen kan erbjuda sin musik via Spotify. Vi tror att en annonsfinansierad musiktjänst med många sökfunktioner är vad marknaden vill ha och vi är övertygade om att Spotify kommer generera fler fans till våra artister och bidra till att våra artister får betalt för sin musik", säger Greg Scholl, president och chief executive officer på The Orchard.

Om Spotify

Spotify är en innovativ musiktjänst som erbjuder sina användare omedelbar tillgång till en värld av musik. Spotify erbjuder "on-demand streaming" av musik och syftar till att bli ett alternativ till piratnedladdning genom att erbjuda en bättre användarupplevelse. Spotify erbjuder både en premiumtjänst som betalas via prenumerationsavgifter och en kostnadsfri version som är reklamfinansierad.

Spotify gör så att fansen kommer närmare sina favoritartister och erbjuder en marknadsplats för ytterligare produkter så som livekonserter, downloads och ringsignaler. "

The talk of the town...

2008-10-06T22:31:00.004+02:00

... 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

2008-10-06T22:17:00.002+02:00

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

2008-10-05T21:48:00.001+02:00

Charlie Munger on the Art of Stock Picking. "And the wise ones 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 only had ten insights. I'm just saying, that most of the money came from ten insights."

A Clover in Stockholm

2008-10-05T21:39:00.003+02:00

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.