Despite the difficult times, Blyk and Xtract are promoting advertising (at least in a sense) as a revenue model. Blyk’s business model is built around advertising as a source of revenue. Blyk confirmed they are going full steam ahead with internationalisation in a recent blog post about entering the Dutch markets in the first quarter of 2009.

In the blog post Blyk refers to an IAB research which states that consumers are sceptical about receiving ads on their mobile but become strongly willing to accept ads on their mobiles when they are incentified. Furthermore the willingness is increased by relevant ads. Something that shouldn’t really be all too shocking when you use common sense.

This thinking is confirmed by Xtract in their most recent white paper titled Brands Need People and People Need Brands. Xtract argues that when ads are positioned correctly at the right touch points - they work, and people actually want to see them.

The problem with business models based on advertising usually is that the companies don’t understand the difficulties the advertisers face. In SIME Helsinki, organised in September, I had multiple talks with advertisers that all these new innovative startups don’t really understand the needs of the advertiser and thus only bringing about banner advertising - is not very appealing. What do you think, are the advertisers up tight or is their discontent acceptable?

Photo by trialsanderrors (CC:BY).

The good guys at Scred are offering 2 free tickets to Alternative Party organised in Helsinki this weekend. You have a good chance of getting these two VIP-level tickets by telling a story of a digital adventure you have had or alternatively - why you’d deserve these tickets. Please comment at the Scred blog, if you wish to participate in the competition.

These tickets include full access to the whole event, from beginning to end, plus the Thursday VIP event and Sunday sauna with organisers and special guests.

Fraced is a relatively new, Helsinki based, social networking service. They themselves state that they are a user centric location based social network. The basic features in the service include a map based view to your network, a dashboard view to activities in your network, message center, photo sharing, video sharing and blogging.

I signed up and it slightly shocked me that they had my photo online already, but of course they pulled it from Gravatar and thus speeded up things in signing up. However, things like this should be in some way made clear to the user. These sort of shock moments aren’t very appealing as you try out the service for the first time.

Nevertheless, the service in itself looks very clean and usability is good. However, it still makes me wonder what the service is for? A cleaner UI and a few cool features aren’t enough to pull your network off from other social networking services. Secondly, the identity of the individuals behind the service are a mystery as they don’t state any names related to the team. Even I was approached with an unnamed e-mail message from the service undersigned as “-Someone”.

We had a fantastic ArcticEvening last night at Dubrovnik in Helsinki and I want to thank everybody who were able to arrive and enjoy the evening with us. Special thanks to Peter Robinett who came all the way from Amsterdam to share his insights on the local startup scene in Amsterdam and in Silicon Valley. Also thanks for our sponsor Technopolis Ventures who made the evening possible.

Based on what I saw last night in Helsinki and heard about the other corners of Nordic and Baltic countries the Arctic scene is very much happening. It is great to see that regardless of the tougher times for the global economy and Jason Calacanis’ darker prediction on things to come, the enthusiasm and spirit is high in the Arctic latitudes.

As Jason says, “Great entrepreneurs build value and market-share in down markets. They go to work seven days a week and breakout when other folks check out.” Last night showed that this is certainly the case in Helsinki. We are very proud of the entrepreneurs, startups and all the high spirited people in Finland -You made our night. Thank you!

Photo by Teppo Kotirinta

BarCampHelsinki2 is being organised this Saturday (10AM onwards). This is the
second BarCamp in Helsinki. BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to
share and learn in an open environment. The original BarCamp concept is a spinoff from Tim O’Reilly’s FooCamp, an annual invitation only event to network, discuss and demo cool new stuff. More on BarCamp in Wikipedia.

Ath the moment there are five sessions (so far):
- Where is microblogging going
- How to develop FB apps?
- Can you make money from FB apps?
- Why (user) experience is all that matters
- Beer - Why do you have to taste so good

There are already 20 participants on the list, and you can still make it if you sign up. More info on BarCampHelsinki Jaiku channel and the wiki. The event is organised in the Fjord premises at Keskuskatu 6G, Helsinki.

If you have any questions about the event, you can contact Antti Akonniemi, the organiser of the event.