Mikael Palmstedt

Ordered some stuff from Bangkok, a UPS guy knocked on our door about 48 hours later. Hooray for globalization.

Soon …..

The shop as such is not opened yet, this first version kind of suck as well so … after 4-5 iterations it will be perfect

In September 2007 a new initiative called Mindpark was initiated by a group of Swedish newspapers. The aim being to create sort of a thinktank and a mediacompany able to act on its own as well as supporting its owners in understanding, implementing and administer projects which will take their old media companies into the new media world. As far as I remember Mindpark got SEK 40 000 000 initial funding (a bit more than EUR4 000 000, by Swedish measurements a lot of money).

The initiative was praised both by the established media companies, the grassrot internet entrepeneurs and the Swedish blogosphere. I thought it was a great step by the newspapers, thinking of the Holtzbrinck e-lab who has been quite successful here in Germany.

Mindpark opened its doors by having one of the most frequently updated blogs in Sweden with regard to writing about new media and how the internet is reshaping people’s daily habits etc, great posts almost every day. One aim of Mindpark was to be a thinktank which they have accomplished I guess. With that said they now must have spent at least SEK1 500 000 of their money, that’s quite an expensive thinktank.

Another aim of Mindpark (which I hope is the main one) was to deliver nine “projects” per year, the scope of these projects I don’t know. It is now the end of March and as far as I know there’s just one project being officially released called Rubbet. Rubbet is quite a weak software platform that should not take a decent developer any amount of time to produce with a very poorly implemented GUI (hey tags are cool right?!?). A new version is apparently in the build-up though.

Mindpark is a very loud voice in the Swedish blogosphere, but their main mission is not to be a great blog and opinionmaker. Leading and managing a great development company is not about going to every conference there is but about actually getting sh#t done, the results will catch up with you eventually.

I hope there’s something great bubbling underneath Mindpark that they are not telling us (even though they say they are aiming to be 100% transparent), but until actual results are shown I’m sad to say that Mindpark seems to become just another one of those projects initiated by larger companies where money go in and nothing comes out except talk.

I’d suggest Mindpark start doing as the e-lab, less talking more doing … and start to deliver amazing concepts. Until that happens I hope they get a nice amount of bashing on the net.

Recently Bytelove AB (who runs istheshit.net) aquired istheshit.com through snapback. Just after the auction started we got this interesting e-mail:

Hello,

We acquired the domain istheshit.com recently.  It is now available at
the price of EUR 2500.

If you are interested in it, please let us know before 6:00 pm,
Sunday, Feb 24, 2008 CET. After that, this domain may not be available
anymore.

About the transition:
The transition of domain and payment can be finished through a trusted
third-party escrow service like sedo.com, afternic.com, etc,  so you
don't have to worry about the trust problems. If you don't get the
domain, we will not get paid.

NOTE: If the name is bought by other company or person, it may never
be available again.

Best regards,

Xxx Xxxxx

I’d assume this is some sort of automated or semiautomated process where the company checks all domains about to expire and the ones that has good traffic on another TLD they bid on. Must work seriously well. Unfortunately if you make a living this way you are a parasite.

We ended up paying around EUR300 for the domain in the snapback auction.

The new server config for PeoplePath is now up and running for; Djur, Dyr, Haustierstall, Lemmikki and Petz4fun. Seems the platform can be scaled without problems from the first results we recieved.

We also launched a new design during the serverchange, the kids are already busy digging up some two million bugs with the new design

Yesterday was SIME innovation day, around 200 people from around 100 startups, Telenor, Ericsson and Google among others.

Congratz to Result who hosted the event, the format was tabletalks which happens to be my favourite since I don’t have to feel guilty about not attending the presentations. It was just as chaotic as it should be when you put in 200 ppl at around 20 tables and move them around in 60 min intervals :).

The event was hosted (and sponsored) together with Google, Ericsson and Telenor. The company that impressed with great presentations, great people and great products was Google. With that said its nice to see that a company such as Telenor at least tries to work in a more modern way with eg its service mobilstart, must be though driving such a project in such a large organization. Maybe it will become cool in a later iteration.

Some interesting companies from the event:

Agent Interactive - Onlinemarketing focus affiliatemarketing/SEM

Cellity - Tune your phone

Extransit - Mobile application framework

Fat Statement - Web 2 print company making funny films

JALBUM - Set your pictures free

JAYCUT - Online video editing

Stereoscape - 3D film production

Townkings represented by Supreme new media

XCERION - Internet operating system

Other blogs writing more in detail about the event I guess / hope:

BisonBlog, Disruptive, Innovationsbloggen, Mindpark, Whatsnext

This was a though three days in Stockholm, today finishing up prios with PeoplePath and then going home to Berlin in the evening … hopefully managing to write some followup mails during the weekend.

The company I work with the most at the moment and that I have a small part of was sued yesterday (not in blogroll). First time a company I co-own is getting sued actually. Since its by a local competitor who basically just asked a büro to take as much money from us as possible it makes it even more interesting.

The company basically sucks, bad tech, silly low prices, etc etc … their only rev stream comes from google organic listings (no chance of them paying for traffic and making a profit) … its a very weak keyword, will be a pleasure spamming them away from google.

Honestly I don’t get why you hastle your competitors in such ways (no chance of them winning), it just pisses people off and they in turn will put work into destroying you regardless if they actually gain anything from it themselves or not.

Usually I have a great relationship with competitors and they have often turned into some of my best cooperation partners after time, but this tsss tsss

Bonnier Tidskrifter buys a majority share of Vetgirig.nu which is run by Conny Thimrén and Dan Erik Ollas. The site has 90 000 members and is by far the biggest quiz site in Sweden.

Conny and Dan Erik after much consideration accepted the offer to partner with Bonnier because of Bonniers strong ties to the advertising business plus the increased access to many more crosspromotional channels such as TV, Newspapers etc.

I am very happy that Conny and Dan Erik has found such a great partner to further strengthen the site and look forward to its development :). To me the deal for Bonnier Tidsrifter is a sure success since I known how hard workers Conny and Dan Erik are due to their comitment in PeoplePath. With an increased budget the site will surely kill :).

The official pressrelease in Swedish:

Bonnier Tidskrifter köper vetgirig.nu

Bonnier går in som majoritetsägare i vetgirig.nu - Sveriges största webbsajt för frågesport. Sajten har idag 90.000 medlemmar och 3,5 miljoner sidvisningar per vecka, och innehållet är i stort sett helt användargenererat.

- Vi är oerhört glada över att utöka vårt Korsordsområde med en stark aktör på nätet. Vetgirig.nu är en mötesplats som förenar underhållning och allmänbildning, och för den som är det minsta tävlingsbenäget lagd är sajten svår att motstå, säger Ulrika Saxon, VD Bonnier Tidskrifter, och fortsätter:

- I Bonnier Tidskrifters utgivning har kunskapsorientering länge varit ett av ledorden, och därför känns förvärvet av vetgirig.nu väl i linje med vårt breddade erbjudande på nätet.

Entreprenörerna Conny Thimrén och Dan Erik Ollas som utvecklat vetgirig.nu säger:

- Det här känns oerhört inspirerande. Vi har alltid fått positiv respons från våra medlemmar och Bonniers intresse stärker oss i vår övertygelse att vetgirig.nu är en växande succé. Suget efter frågesport och tävling är stort i Sverige. Tack vare detta samarbete, kan vi utveckla sajten ännu mer och nå en ännu bredare publik.

Bonnier Tidskrifter omsätter 1,5 miljarder kr och har en utgivning i Sverige som bl a omfattar ett femtiotal tidskrifter samt sajterna privataaffarer, se, veckorevyn.com, amelia,se, alltommat.se, teknikensvarld.se, va.se, KPwebben.se, samt alltombarn.se

Need a babysitter and live in Germany? Then check out the newly launched Betreut.de who in the last months has signed up more than 10 000 babysitters (source Betreut).

Betreut sits in the BASF building next to the Warschauer Strasse U-Bahn Station (and very close to the Simon-Dach strasse one of Berlins funnier bar streets). Betreut is run by Steffen who I meet a few years ago when we where both working in Leipzig during the summer.

A babysitter portal with some e-bay dynamics might be just such an easy thing that it actually works, next step after finding the babysitters will be to get families to actually use the service.

Was chatting a bit with Conny about 2-3 weeks ago (partner at PeoplePath).

- Hmm, September was pretty good

- Ja we are even kind of making a good profit this month ….

- Maybe we need to spend a bit more money

- Hmmm

So the result: Welcome Nigel! New developer at PeoplePaths Stockholm office.

Nigel is born and raised in London but has spent his professional life working in Sweden since 1999 doing projects for Nivelo (post 2000 bubble company ) and MTG among others.

So with Nigel and our new graphics freelancer on board we are now safely in the red again ;).