Something new and fun

Occasionally, you just stumble up on (no, no, not the community…) something fun you could use in your daily work. A college of mine, Russel, always made this nice clouds in presentations. So I asked what he used, and he told me he uses Wordle to create stuff. So I just tried it out on my blog, finding keywords and phrases – and it looked like this:

Myself testing keywords and phrases in Wordle
Myself testing keywords and phrases in Wordle
. Test it yourself!

Interesting way of branding things!

A music video has done something quite interesting I think, they have put 41 different ads in the video! So, how do we classify this? Is it user-generated, viral involuntary co-op branding? But it’s an interesting technique – commercials as a library for music video producers.
Ooh, almost forgot – how many of the commercials can you name??
You’ll find it here: “

Steinar Nilsen – new manager in Brann

Steinar Nilsen, the former manager of Tromsø, signed a three-year contract with Brann today, starting January 1st 2009.
Despite having pushed Tromsø to third-place in Tippeligaen 2008, I really don’t know. I’m hoping for the best, but I’m skeptical. Going abroad this time I think would be a good idea, why not trying something new and different?
But I think it comes down to these factors; money and daring!
But one thing if for sure – I wish him the best for the best football team!
Here is a picture of him:

Two-thirds uses social media

According to Market Tools two thirds of the adult population in the USA says that they use social media (blogs, online communities and social networks).
Almost 20 percent sys the they use them on a daily basis and another 20 percent uses it at least once a week.
One third says they never uses it. But the bottom line, it increases, 42 percent says they use these kind of sites more frequently than six months ago.
The graph looks like this:
Women uses it in a larger amount than men, 70 percent women vs. 65 percent men. 22 percent women visits blogs and other social media, while men are 16 percent.

I really like Bambuser

As they say in the Facebook group: Like Youtube, only live – What happens when everyone is having a broadcasting bus in their pocket…
I have done some testing of it, and when you use it from a business point of view, it’s some of the better things I’ve come across lately. Think about all the possibilities, broadcasting an event, a speech, a congress and so on. Really, really nice!
They by the way won the Sime awards for best mobile plattform.
Test Bambuser and let me know what you think about it.

Bambuser vs Qik from Måns Adler on Vimeo.

How to create a successful blog

Just some ideas about it, since I have been working on this subject for the last couple of days with some of my customers.
Here is some of my ideas:

1. Determining Your Information Sources. (You need something to write about and picking the right informational sources will make sure that your news blog is not only relevant but timely and unique.)

2. Find other Blogs in Your Niche (I suggest that you pay extra attention to blogs which specialize in a sub-niche because they are usually the ones who publish unique content worth mentioning.)

3. Use Social News and Bookmark Websites of Interest. (Highly recommend subscribing to the RSS feeds of active stumblers, instead of using the toolbar to stumble pages yourself.)

4. Keyword Watchlists (Monitoring of specific key phrases or keywords related to your blog in order to pick up on relevant news in a place like Google Alerts.)

5. Reader Tips (Your blog readers are great source of information. Set up a tips email account and publicize it on your site. You might not get many tips in the beginning when your site is new but this will change as your news site grows.)

The Worst Enemy For The Salmon – Norway!

I couldn’t help, I’ve found this article in todays Aftenposten where Orri Vigússon, an Icelandic entrepreneur and environmentalist and in this matter – the Chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund. He’s making some points on the Norwegian way of doing politics, in this case fish… And guess what, it’s not very flattering, again the Norwegian hypocrisy, Jonas Gahr Støre, yet again be ashamed.
The link to the article (in Norwegian) is here and picture of

Is really Oakland A’s trading for Matt Holiday?

The A’s are working to complete a trade with the Rockies that would bring Matt Holliday to Oakland. One of the sources said said reliever Huston Street, lefty starter Greg Smith and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez were among the players who had been discussed in recent days.
Why, beats me since it’s only a one year rental, Oakland can’t afford to keep, but as the owner Lew Wolff said in an interview: “f we can bring a little bit of hitting talent to our current team I think the pitchers won’t get as frustrated as they were late in the season,” Wolff told the gathering of sports editors. “You’re always rebuilding and regenerating. It’s fun. We want to win. I want to win. We’re going to try to be there again if we can.”

Barack Obama Elected President

Barack Obama, shattered more than 200 years of history Tuesday night by winning election as the first African-American president of the United States. Mr Obama received 349 electoral vote vs John McCains 159. A landslide if you ask, and in my mind, quite surprising.

And my thoughts about this, well – Mr. Obama can not possibly be as good as people are hoping for him. He’s a human being, he’ll foul up and make mistakes. He won’t do everything he wants to do, and people will be disappointed. That’s how things are. He’s going to be strapped financially, and militarily. He’s going to have to fight off the endless nattering attacks of the right wing in the US. He’s going to have to learn on the job. But none of this means we should still not hope for the best, and realize that he’s probably the best chance there is right now to get things done in the US. People need to get behind him after a long period of self-destruction at the hands of the Republicans. I hope he can make some headway and start pointing the USA in the right direction. He’s not the messiah, but he’s an intelligent and optimistic person who wants to do right. That’s what the world need right now, more than anything else, but it’s also a heavy burden to have to bear. He need all the luck and intelligence he could get!

I’m very curios, who will win the US Election?

I’m interested in finding out if the US will do something that wouldn’t happen in Norway in the next twenty years, choosing someone to office with a different background then tradition says…
And if Mr. Obama will win, then I think the world will be very disappointed within the next six months – he’s voted by Americans and will put their interests in front, quite naturally. And that will come as a shock to many I’ll guess.
Anyway, it will be an interesting night.

Consumers expects more!

One of the so called marketing gurus, Mitch Joe, said at the Global Ecommerce Summit in Amsterdam that social media has changed the behavior on how to communicate with our customers.
An example is when 40 % of American mums have their own space at MySpace, well, it’s time to think on how to market.
“We have just taken ordinary ads and put them on the net. Today consumers expects interaction wit real people”, he said. “Everybody on the net is in contact with each other, there is no barriers, and marketers must use the possibilities which is out there”.
“You can’t brake the net, play with it! The ones who doesn’t create good content have a problem when Google defines your brand. You have to interact with your customers, a blog without interaction is like digital masturbation”, end of quote.

His blog Six Pixels of Seperation was said to be the most influential marketing blog in 2006 and he is today working on a book on the same subject. You’ll find his blog here: and here is a link to the conversation at the conference in Amsterdam.

A little detail about tomorrows presidental election

Barack Obama and John McCain uncorked massive get-out-the-vote operations in more than a dozen battleground states, millions of telephone calls, mailings and door-knockings in a frenzied, fitting climax to a record-shattering $1 billion campaign. Together, they’ll spend about $8 per presidential vote. I wonder how much money the Norwegian parties will spend of their campaigns next year…

With just a day to go, most national polls show Obama ahead of McCain. State surveys suggest the Democrat’s path to the requisite 270 electoral votes—and perhaps far beyond—is much easier to navigate than McCain’s.

Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. All were won by Bush and made competitive by Obama’s record-shattering fundraising. The campaigns also are running aggressive ground games elsewhere, including Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.

Phillies win the World Series

The Philadelphia Phillies just won World Series. If that sounds strange, it was strange. Nearly 50 hours after Game 5 started but was stopped by rain, Brad Lidge and the Phillies finished off the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in a three-inning sprint Wednesday night and won the series 4-1.

Left in limbo by a two-day storm, the Phillies seesawed to their first championship since 1980. Pedro Feliz singled home the go-ahead run in the seventh and Lidge closed out his perfect season to deliver the title Phillies craved for so long.
It was among the wackiest endings in baseball history, a best-of-seven series turned into a best-of-3 1/2 showdown when play resumed in the bottom of the sixth inning tied at 2.

Tampa Bay did itself proud, too, until this final week. Baseball’s best success story this season, the worst-to-first Rays played like the Devil Rays from the past decade.

And I was the one thought Rays would come out on top…

Small things in life happens

Norges Bank announced it was cutting another half-point off its key rate. That brings it down to 4.75 percent, and means that rates have dropped by a full point since earlier this month, the snow is falling and I won the bet on which day the first snow will fall, World Series is postponed because of rain, and a bankrupt Sterling put all it’s planes on the ground. What can you say, it’s just another Wednesday!

Top-10 sites in the US, september 08

Interesting information, in September 144 millions of all Internet users in the US stopped by one of Googles sites. That’s more than 75 %! Talk about monopoly and marketing possibilities! During September the amount of users we’re 189,5 millions.
Not surprisingly Yahoo! and Microsoft are the number two and there. The source for this is ComSource.
The list looks like this: